Hollis Sigler, born in Gary, Ind., in 1948, died March 29, in Prairie View, Ill. An openly lesbian artist, Sigler received the 2001 distinguished artist award in February for lifetime achievement from the College Art Association.
The following was published in About Books by Tee A. Corinne in the final issue of Feminist Bookstore News (summer, 2000). "When a pharmaceutical company recently purchased ten thousand copies Hollis Sigler's Breast Cancer Journal for distribution free to health professionals, Hollis Sigler ... became the most visible openly lesbian artist of the year 2000 and her book went into a second printing. ... Hollis Sigler' Breast Cancer Journal, texts by Susan M. Love, M.D. and James Yood. $25 pb, 1-55595-176-7; $45 cl, 1-55595-175-9, Hudson Hills, dist. by National Book Network."
Sigler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1985. After an initial course of treatment that appeared to be successful, the cancer reappeared in 1991 and spread to her bones; she decided that she would use her skills as an artist to record her struggles with mortality: her grandmother had died of breast cancer, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer two years before she was and has since died of the disease, her oncologist told her that she "should not expect to be an old woman."
Sigler attended the 2000 Lesbian Community Cancer Project benefit and was noticeably weakened from her fight with cancer.
Her first series of paintings and drawings relating to her cancer were shown in galleries beginning in 1992; a large exhibition which received national coverage and acclaim was mounted in 1993 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. (and she is in the Women Artists book created from the Museum exhibit). Her work is included in the Chicago Art Institute, the Smithsonian, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and more.
Sigler was on the faculty of Columbia College and she had a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Illinois Arts Council, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sigler was profiled by Lambda Publications reporter Cathy Seabaugh for the Sept. 7, 1994 Nightlines (her long-time partner, jewelry designer Patricia Locke, has been profiled earlier that year). The interview was the first time Sigler, who was already a well-known artist, discussed being a lesbian in public.
"It's only been in the last three years that the media has focused any on breast cancer," Sigler told Nightlines in 1994. "I thought the images in my paintings would change as I change," Sigler noted. "But the meaning of the images has changed."
The image at right is from the cover of Sigler's Breast Cancer Journal: Walking with the Ghosts of My Grandmothers. This is the title piece of the booklet, oil on canvas, 66" x 54" with painted frame, 1992. Sigler wrote: " ... My great grandmother Sarah Anna Truitt Ryan died from cancer. This happened sixty years ago. My mother Marilyn Ryan Sigler, has breast cancer. She had a mastectomy in 1983. The cancer metastasized to her lungs five years later. I discovered a lump in my underarm on a summer day in 1985. I had a mastectomy in the beginning of August of 1985. It was followed by 6 months of chemotherapy. The cancer is now in my bones, my pelvis and my spine."
LEFT: Hollis Sigler pictured with the Sept. 7, 1994 Nightlines Q-lines on her, with one of her portraits. Photo by Becky Frey
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