Hollis Sigler

Hollis Sigler said that she utilized a childlike, faux-naïf style as a reaction against a patriarchal culture that treated women as little more than children. Her style was also a means of conveying difficult emotional content in a way that viewers could easily understand. Her subject matter focused on a woman's worldview. Born in Gary, Indiana, in 1948, Sigler earned her Master of Fine Arts from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1973. Sigler established herself as part of Chicago’s art scene during a period when artists there were challenging New York City’s cultural hegemony. Familiar with Chicago’s Hairy Who group, which emphasized cartoons and other popular imagery, and the whimsical art of Florine Stettheimer, Sigler found quirky precedents for her own idiosyncratic approach. In the late 1970s to the early 80s, Sigler's works focused on the personal struggles of a woman and on her lesbian identity. In 1985, Sigler was diagnosed with breast cancer, which later spread to her bones. Her work from the 1990s until her death from cancer in 2001 dealt with the personal pain of the disease and its effect on society. In 1999, Sigler published Breast Cancer Journal a pictorial journal with a series of sixty paintings tracing her struggles with breast cancer. The brightly colored interiors and vividly imaged natural scenes seldom contain human figures. The paintings represent illness through the depiction of rooms, houses, and landscapes that are almost always unoccupied. In 2001, Sigler was honored with the College Art Association’s Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Chicago Caucus for Women in the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.