Sylvia Sleigh (8 May 1916 – 24 October 2010) was a Welsh-born naturalised American
realist painter who lived and worked in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
She is known for her role in the
feminist art movement
The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and perception of contemporary ar ...
and especially for reversing traditional gender roles in her paintings of nude men, often using conventional female poses from historical paintings by male artists like
Diego Vélazquez,
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
, and
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...
. Her most well-known subjects were art critics, feminist artists, and her husband,
Lawrence Alloway
Lawrence Reginald Alloway (17 September 1926 – 2 January 1990) was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from 1961. In the 1950s, he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an i ...
.
[
]
Early life and education
Sleigh was born in Llandudno
Llandudno (, ) is a seaside resort, town and community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2011 UK census, the community – which includes Gogarth, Penrhyn Bay, Craigsi ...
, and raised in England. She studied at the Brighton School of Art
Founded as the Brighton School of Art in 1859, the University of Brighton School of Art and Media is an organisational part of the University of Brighton, with courses in the creative arts, visual communication, media, craft and fashion and textil ...
. For a time, she worked at a clothing shop in Bond Street
Bond Street in the West End of London links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north. Since the 18th century the street has housed many prestigious and upmarket fashion retailers. The southern section is Old Bond Street and the l ...
, where she recalled "undressing Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gon ...
".[ Sleigh later opened her own business in ]Brighton, England
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Ag ...
, where she made hats, coats, and dresses until she closed her shop at the start of World War II.[ She returned to painting and moved to London in 1941 after marrying her first husband, an English painter named Michael Greenwood.][ Her first solo exhibition was in 1953 at the Kensington Art Gallery in London. Sleigh met her second husband, ]Lawrence Alloway
Lawrence Reginald Alloway (17 September 1926 – 2 January 1990) was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from 1961. In the 1950s, he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an i ...
, an English curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
and art critic
An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...
, while taking evening classes to study art history at the University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
; they married in 1954 and moved to the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in 1961.[ The following year, Alloway became a curator at the ]Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
.
Work and feminism
Male nudes
Around 1970, from feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
principles, she painted a number of works reversing stereotypical artistic themes by featuring nude men in poses that were traditionally associated with women, like the reclining Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
or odalisque
An odalisque (, tr, odalık) was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the ...
.[ Some directly alluded to existing works, such as ''Philip Golub Reclining'' (1971), which appropriates the pose of the '']Rokeby Venus
The ''Rokeby Venus'' (; also known as ''The Toilet of Venus'', ''Venus at her Mirror'', ''Venus and Cupid'', or '' La Venus del espejo'') is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 ...
'' by Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...
. The model was the son of the artists Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero (August 24, 1926 – October 18, 2009) was an American visual artist. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spero lived for much of her life in New York City. She married and collaborated with artist Leon Golub. As both artist and activist, Nanc ...
and Leon Golub
Leon Golub (January 23, 1922 – August 8, 2004) was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his Bachelor of Arts, BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts, BFA and Ma ...
. This work also presents a reversal of the male-artist/female-muse pattern typical of the Western canon and is reflective of research into the position of women throughout the history of art as model, mistress, and muse, but rarely as artist−genius. Unlike earlier male artists, Sleigh individualized her nude subjects instead of representing them as generalized types.[
''The Turkish Bath'' (1973), a similarly gender-reversed version of ]Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ...
's painting of the same name, depicts a group of artists and art critics, including her husband, Lawrence Alloway (reclining at the lower right), Carter Ratcliff
Carter Ratcliff (born 1941 in Seattle, Washington) is an American art critic, writer and poet. His books on art include "John Singer Sargent" (Abbeville Press, 1982); "Robert Longo" ( Rizzoli, 1985); "The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Post ...
, John Perreault
John Lucas Perreault ( New York, New York, August 26, 1937 – September 6, 2015, New York, New York) was a poet, art curator, art critic and artist.
Early life
Perreault was born in Manhattan and raised in Belmar and other towns in New Jersey. ...
, and Scott Burton
Scott Burton (June 23, 1939 – December 29, 1989) was an American sculptor and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite and bronze.
Early years
Burton was born in Greensboro, Alabama to Walter Scott Bu ...
.[ Also shown are two views of Sleigh's frequent model, Paul Rosano.] One pose borrowed directly from Ingres's painting is found in the figure of Rosano, seated on the left and playing a guitar with his back turned to the viewer. Alloway reclines in the conventional pose of an odalisque. Ingres's painting has many nude women but Sleigh minimized the number and painted only six men. She carefully painted individual body hairs.[ Over the course of her career, Sleigh painted more than thirty works that feature her husband as a subject.][ While somewhat idealized, Sleigh's figures remain highly individualized.][ She often used her husband and friends as models because they were important to her.][
In her male nudes, the subject "is used as a vehicle to express erotic feelings, just as male artists have always used the female nude". In works such as ''Paul Rosano Reclining'' (1974) and ''Imperial Nude: Paul Rosano'' (1975), Sleigh portrayed her male subjects in stereotypical female poses in order to comment on past biases in which male artists have depicted sexualized female nudes.
Other works equalize the roles of men and women, such as ''Concert Champêtre'' (1976), in which all of the figures are nude, unlike its similarly composed namesake by ]Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
(earlier credited to Giorgione
Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic qualit ...
), in which only the women are unclothed. As Sleigh explained, "I feel that my paintings stress the equality of men and women (women and men). To me, women were often portrayed as sex objects in humiliating poses. I wanted to give my perspective. I liked to portray both man and woman as intelligent and thoughtful people with dignity and humanism that emphasized love and joy." Likewise, her painting of Lilith
Lilith ( ; he, Wiktionary:לילית, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian Mythology, Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. ...
(1976), created as a component of '' The Sister Chapel'', a collaborative installation that premiered in 1978, depicts the superimposed bodies of a man and woman to emphasize the fundamental similarities between the two genders.
Feminist activism
In 1972, Sylvia Sleigh played a significant role in securing a venue and serving as a juror for ''Women Choose Women'', a major exhibition of more than 100 works by female artists at the New York Cultural Center
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
in January and February 1973.[
Sleigh was a founding member of the all-women, artist-run SOHO 20 Gallery (est. 1973) and later joined the all-women cooperative ]A.I.R. Gallery
A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence) is the first all female artists cooperative gallery in the United States. It was founded in 1972 with the objective of providing a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists during a time i ...
(est. 1972), which opened a year before SOHO 20 and inspired its organizational structure. Sleigh painted group portraits of the artists in both organizations. The ''SoHo 20 Gallery Group Portrait'' was painted in 1974.[ Her '' A.I.R. Group Portrait'' (1977–78) is considered to be a document of the feminist movement,][ especially the centering of women in cooperative galleries.] Among the feminist artists in ''A.I.R. Group Portrait'' are Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero (August 24, 1926 – October 18, 2009) was an American visual artist. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spero lived for much of her life in New York City. She married and collaborated with artist Leon Golub. As both artist and activist, Nanc ...
, Howardena Pindell
Howardena Pindell (born April 14, 1943) is an American artist, curator, and educator. She is known as a painter and mixed media artist, her work explores texture, color, structures, and the process of making art; it is often political, addressing ...
, Agnes Denes
Agnes Denes (Dénes Ágnes; born 1931 in Budapest) is a Hungarian-born American conceptual artist based in New York. She is known for works in a wide range of media—from poetry and philosophical writings to extremely detailed drawings, sculpt ...
, Sari Dienes
Sari Dienes (8 October 1898 – 25 May 1992) was a Hungarian-born American artist. During a career spanning six decades she worked in a wide range of media, creating paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, ceramics, textile designs, sets and c ...
, Blythe Bohnen
Blythe Bohnen (born 1940) is an American artist known for her minimalistic graphite drawings and photographs that represent aspects of motion. She uses shutter speed.
Early life and education
Bohnen earned a Bachelor of Arts in art history at Sm ...
, Dotty Attie
Dotty Attie (born 1938, Pennsauken, New Jersey) is an acclaimed feminist painter, and the co-founder of the first all-female cooperative art gallery in America, A.I.R. Gallery. Her work has been widely exhibited and is in many major museum colle ...
, and Mary Beth Edelson
Mary Beth Edelson (born Mary Elizabeth Johnson) (6 February 1933 - 20 April 2021) was an American artist and pioneer of the feminist art movement, deemed one of the notable "first-generation feminist artists." Edelson was a printmaker, book art ...
.[ Sleigh painted herself standing next to Howardena Pindell.][ Between 1976 and 2007, Sleigh painted a series of 36-inch portraits which feature women artists and writers, including Helène Aylon, Catharine R. Stimpson, ]Howardena Pindell
Howardena Pindell (born April 14, 1943) is an American artist, curator, and educator. She is known as a painter and mixed media artist, her work explores texture, color, structures, and the process of making art; it is often political, addressing ...
, Selina Trieff, and Vernita Nemec Vernita Nemec (born 1942 in Painesville, Ohio), also known by the performance name Vernita N'Cognita, is a visual and performance artist, curator, and arts activist based in New York City. She earned her BFA at Ohio University in 1964 and has resid ...
.
In a 2007 interview with Brian Sherwin
Brian Sherwin (born January 22, 1980) is an American art critic, writer, and blogger with a degree from Illinois College in 2003. Sherwin is a founding Management Team member of the artist social networking site myartspace, where he also served as ...
, Sleigh was asked if gender equality issues in the mainstream art world, and the world in general, had changed for the better. She answered, "I do think things have improved for women in general there are many more women in government, in law and corporate jobs, but it's very difficult in the art world for women to find a gallery." According to Sleigh, there is still more that needs to be done in order for men and women to be treated as equals in the art world.
During the last two decades of her life, Sleigh purchased or negotiated trades of over 100 works of art by other women and exhibited her growing collection at SOHO 20 Gallery in 1999.[ These included paintings, sculptures, and prints by Cecile Abish, ]Dotty Attie
Dotty Attie (born 1938, Pennsauken, New Jersey) is an acclaimed feminist painter, and the co-founder of the first all-female cooperative art gallery in America, A.I.R. Gallery. Her work has been widely exhibited and is in many major museum colle ...
, Helène Aylon, Blythe Bohnen
Blythe Bohnen (born 1940) is an American artist known for her minimalistic graphite drawings and photographs that represent aspects of motion. She uses shutter speed.
Early life and education
Bohnen earned a Bachelor of Arts in art history at Sm ...
, Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
, Ann Chernow
Ann Chernow (née Levy; born February 1, 1936) is an American artist who is known for her portrait-style illustrations that evoke the images of female cinematic figures of the 1930s and 1940s.Barbara Cavaliere, "Ann Chernow," ''Arts Magazine'' (M ...
, Rosalyn Drexler
Rosalyn Drexler (born November 25, 1926) is an American visual artist, novelist, Obie Award-winning playwright, and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter, and former professional wrestler. Although she has had a polymathic career, Drexler is perhap ...
, Martha Edelheit
Martha Nilsson Edelheit (born September 3, 1931, in New York City), also known as Martha Ross Edelheit, is an American-born artist currently living in Sweden. She is known for her feminist art of the 1960s and 1970s, which focuses on erotic nude ...
, Audrey Flack
Audrey L. Flack (born May 30, 1931) is an American artist. Her work pioneered the art genre of photorealism and encompasses painting, sculpture, and photography.
Flack has numerous academic degrees, including both a graduate and an honorary doct ...
, Shirley Gorelick
Shirley Gorelick (24 January 1924 – 19 October 2000) was an American figurative painter, printmaker, and sculptor. She "rejected both the extremes of nonobjectivity and photographic exactitude," choosing instead to use a range of sources that ...
, Nancy Grossman
Nancy Grossman (born April 28, 1940) is an American artist. Grossman is best known for her wood and leather sculptures of heads.
Early life and education
Nancy Grossman was born in 1940 in New York City to parents who worked in the garment ind ...
, Pegeen Guggenheim
Pegeen is the anglicized spelling of Peigín, an Irish given name meaning "little Peig" or "little Margaret", and may refer to: People
* Brigit Pegeen Kelly (1951–2016), American poet
* Pegeen Fitzgerald (1904–1989) American radio persona ...
, Nancy Holt
Nancy Holt (April 5, 1938 – February 8, 2014) was an American artist most known for her public sculpture, installation art, concrete poetry, and land art. Throughout her career, Holt also produced works in other media, including film and photog ...
, Lila Katzen
Lila Katzen (30 December 1925, in Brooklyn, NY – 20 September 1998, in New York, NY), born Lila Pell, was an American sculptor of fluid, large-scale metal abstractions.
Education and early work
Katzen was born and raised in Brooklyn. She atten ...
, Irene Krugman, Diana Kurz
Diana Kurz (born 1936, Vienna, Austria) is an Austrian-born feminist painter who is known for her ''Remembrance (Holocaust)'' series, which explores the "loss and preservation" of the artist’s family members during the Holocaust.
Early life and ...
, Marion Lerner-Levine
Marion Lerner-Levine (born Marion Lerner, October 31, 1931 – October 26, 2023) was British-born American painter, printmaker, and teacher who created "emotionally expressive" still life paintings in oil and watercolor, which "transform the tr ...
, Vernita Nemec Vernita Nemec (born 1942 in Painesville, Ohio), also known by the performance name Vernita N'Cognita, is a visual and performance artist, curator, and arts activist based in New York City. She earned her BFA at Ohio University in 1964 and has resid ...
, Betty Parsons
Betty Parsons (born Betty Bierne Pierson, January 31, 1900 – July 23, 1982) was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic f ...
, Ce Roser Cecilia Roser, who works under the name Ce Roser, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1925. Roser has been active in New York City as an artist since the 1960s. Ever since childhood, Roser had been painting and drawing. While studying in ...
, Susan Sills, Michelle Stuart, Selina Trieff, Audrey Ushenko, Sharon Wybrants
Sharon Wybrants (born 1943 in Miami Beach, Florida) is an American painter, performance artist, and educator.
Education and early career
Wybrants earned an AFA at Sullins College (1961–63), a BFA at Ohio Wesleyan University (1963–65), and ...
, and many others. In 2011, the Sylvia Sleigh Collection was donated to the Rowan University Art Gallery and forms the core of its permanent collection.
''Invitation to a Voyage''
In 2006, Sylvia Sleigh donated her largest painting,[ ''Invitation to a Voyage: The Hudson River at Fishkill'' (1979–1999), to the ]Hudson River Museum
The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County. The Yonkers Museum, founded in 1919 at City Hall, became the Hudson River Museum in 1948. While often considered an art museum by th ...
. In fourteen panels totaling 70 feet in length, Sleigh's panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
occupies two walls when exhibited.[ She was inspired by the ]pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
works of Antoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, a ...
, Giorgione
Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic qualit ...
, and Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born ...
. Included are Sleigh's husband, Lawrence Alloway, and a group of friends who were mostly artists and art critics.[ They are picnicking, posing, painting, and interacting against the backdrop of the Hudson River and the nearby woods.][ The "Riverside" and "Woodside" sections, each consisting of seven panels, are exhibited opposite each other for an immersive experience.]
Recognition
Between 1953 and 2010, Sylvia Sleigh had more than 45 solo exhibitions at colleges and universities, professional art galleries, and museums, most notably at Douglass College
Douglass Residential College, is an undergraduate, non degree granting higher education program of Rutgers University-New Brunswick for women. It succeeded the liberal arts degree-granting Douglass College after it was merged with the other unde ...
, University of Rhode Island
The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Island ...
, Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
, Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
, Philadelphia Art Alliance
The Philadelphia Art Alliance at University of the Arts is a multidisciplinary arts center located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. It is the oldest multidisciplinary arts center in the United States for visua ...
, Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art.
Location and Visit
Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...
, and Butler Institute of American Art
The Butler Institute of American Art, located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art. Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the museum h ...
. A posthumous traveling solo exhibition was held at the Kunstnernes Hus
Kunstnernes Hus (Norwegian for "Artists' House") is an art gallery in Oslo, Norway. It is Norway's largest gallery under the direction of artists, and has served as a major center for exhibits of Norwegian and international contemporary art. It i ...
in Oslo, Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen in Switzerland, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux
CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, formerly the Centre d'arts plastiques contemporains (CAPC), is a museum of modern art established in 1973 in Bordeaux, France.
Building
The museum is housed in the ''Entrepôt Lainé'', a former warehou ...
, and the Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...
between 2012 and 2013.
Sleigh's work is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...
, Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...
, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the su ...
, Akron Art Museum
The Akron Art Museum is an art museum in Akron, Ohio, United States.
The museum first opened on February 1, 1922, as the Akron Art Institute. It was located in two borrowed rooms in the basement of the public library. The Institute offered clas ...
, and others.[
Sleigh taught at the ]State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
in 1978 and at the New School for Social Research
The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
from 1974 until 1977 and between 1978 and 1980.[ As a visiting professor of painting, Sleigh was awarded the Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Professorship at ]Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
in 1977.[ She received a grant from the ]National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
in 1982 and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expression ...
Grant in 1985.[
In February 2008, Sleigh was interviewed by ]Lynn Hershman Leeson
Lynn Hershman Leeson (née Lynn Lester Hershman; born 1941) is a multimedia American artist and filmmaker. Her work combines art with social commentary, particularly on the relationship between people and technology. Leeson is a pioneer in new med ...
, who included a portion of the interview in her documentary ''!Women Art Revolution
''!Women Art Revolution'' is a 2010 documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson and distributed by Zeitgeist Films. It tracks the feminist art movement over 40 years through interviews with artists, curators, critics, and historians.
Synop ...
''.
In 2008, Sleigh was honored with the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement by the College Art Association
The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...
. She was similarly recognized by the Women's Caucus for Art
The Women's Caucus for Art (WCA), founded in 1972, is a non-profit organization based in New York City, which supports women artists, art historians, students, educators, and museum professionals. The WCA holds exhibitions and conferences to promo ...
, which posthumously awarded Sleigh the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award
Lifetime achievement awards are awarded by various organizations, to recognize contributions over the whole of a career, rather than or in addition to single contributions.
Such awards, and organizations presenting them, include:
A
* A.C. ...
in 2011.[ She died of complications from a stroke in October 2010.][
Sleigh's work was included in the 2022 exhibition ''Women Painting Women'' at the ]Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...
.
References
External links
*
Lawrence Alloway and Sylvia Sleigh Correspondence
1948–1982. The Getty Research Institute
The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". , Los Angeles. Approximately 1,000 digitized items from the archives of Sylvia Sleigh and Lawrence Alloway.
Finding Aid for the Sylvia Sleigh Papers, 1803-2011, bulk 1940-2000.
The Getty Research Institute
The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". , Los Angeles, Accession no. 2004.M.4. Archive contains more than 100 boxes of: correspondence; project files relating to exhibitions; documentation of artworks; writings and lectures; files relating to women artist organizations and cooperatives; teaching files; printed matter; and personal material.
Sylvia Sleigh Papers, 1961-1983.
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Files containing correspondence, printed material and miscellany; photographs of Sleigh's paintings; catalogs, announcements, and clippings concerning Sleigh.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sleigh, Sylvia
1916 births
2010 deaths
American women painters
Painters from New York (state)
Feminist artists
People from Llandudno
Welsh feminists
20th-century Welsh painters
21st-century Welsh painters
Welsh women painters
20th-century American painters
20th-century American women artists
21st-century American women artists
British emigrants to the United States