Hollis Sigler, 53, painter and teacher

Hollis Sigler never gave up on her artistic work.

Even in the painful last three years of her life, she foundstrength to publish a book and continue to teach and paint.

Ms. Sigler was widely known for painting about breast cancer in afaux-naif, or simple, childlike style, and for being a foundingmember of Artemisia, one of the first women's cooperative galleriesin the country.

She died of breast cancer Thursday at her home in Prairie View.She was 53.

"I think that from the time she was a little girl, art was alwaysher salvation, a way of playing and always a way of being. She was anartist from the start," said Patricia Locke, her companion of 21years.

Born in Gary, Ind., in 1948, Ms. Sigler was reared in Cranbury,N.J., where she graduated from Heights Town High School in 1966.

Ms. Sigler earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from MooreCollege of Art in Philadelphia in 1970 and a master's degree in finearts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1973.

She created psychologically complex narrative paintings anddrawings grounded in women's experiences-from love and family todisease, loss and death. Her style spoke of her identity as a lesbianand a 15-year breast cancer survivor.

"Hollis chose to paint and draw in a naive way, like a child,because she felt it to be a more direct way to express her emotions,"said Joe Howard, her personal assistant and friend of 17 years. "Shealso identified the traditional way of drawing to the male-dominatedart world."

When Ms. Sigler found out she had breast cancer in 1985, she kepther familiar domestic interiors and naive style but began to fill thespaces with text and items such as cages, hanging tables, mendedtrees and damaged Greek goddesses, symbolizing cancer and theprecariousness of life.

In 1993, the National Museum of Women in the Arts exhibited herseries "Breast Cancer Journal: Walking With the Ghosts of OurGrandmothers," which explored her family legacy of the disease. Bothher mother and grandmother died of breast cancer.

The painting "To Kiss the Spirits: Now This Is What It Is ReallyLike" is considered the masterpiece of Ms. Sigler's breast cancerseries.

"Hollis always used her artwork in a metaphorical manner that notonly caused people to look at her work as a pleasant visualexperience, but as a message that would be gripping and reaching deepinside," said gallery owner Carl Hammer.

In 1999, she published her essay collection Hollis Sigler's BreastCancer Journals.

Ms. Sigler, also a professor at Columbia College since 1978,received the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement fromthe College Art Association in February. She had received an honorarydoctorate from Moore College of Art in 1994.

Survivors include her father, Philip, and brother, Andrew.

A memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. April 21 at the GetzTheater of Columbia College, 72 E. 11th St. Funeral services were setfor Saturday in Highland Park.