Hollis Sigler

Who was Hollis Sigler?

Hollis Sigler was a Chicago-based artist whose paintings addressed her life with breast cancer. She died of the disease in 2001, at the age of 53. She received degrees from both Moore College of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her mature artistic style was faux-naïve, featuring paintings whose subjects, furniture and clothing set in doll-house type interiors and suburban landscapes, were stand-ins for the implicitly female figure. She was an openly lesbian artist and a prominent member of the faculty of Columbia College in Chicago. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1985, Sigler’s themes became more personal, confronting ideas about body image, heredity, illness, mortality and hope.