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NEW YORK, United States — Esteemed writer and editor Ingrid Sischy, who served as editor-in-chief of Interview magazine for 18 years, has died at the age of 63. Sischy passed away Friday morning at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The cause of death was breast cancer.
Sischy, who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, came to prominence as editor of Art Forum, where she worked from 1979 to 1987. In 1988, she became photography and fashion critic at The New Yorker, a role she held until 1996, profiling figures like Robert Mapplethorpe, as well as fashion designers Miuccia Prada, Azzedine Alaïa and Alexander McQueen in the early stages of their careers.
From 1989 to 1998, Sischy served as editor-in-chief of Interview magazine, founded in 1969 by Andy Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock, where she worked alongside her partner, Interview president and publisher Sandra Brant.
In 1997, Sischy became a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where she profiled leading figures from the worlds of art, fashion and entertainment, from Madonna and Keith Haring to Jeff Koons and Jean-Michel Basquiat. She conducted the first interview with fashion designer John Galliano following his unceremonious exit from Dior, which appeared in Vanity Fair under the headline: "Galliano in the Wilderness."
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Since 2008, Sischy was an international editor at Condé Nast International, contributing to the French, Italian and Spanish editions of Vanity Fair, as well as German Vogue.
Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter remembered Sischy in an obituary on the magazine's website today: "She could write about anything, but what interested her most were art and fashion, and she traversed those two hothouses like a bemused empress. She had a crisp mind and an almost uncanny focus when she sat down to write. She was a fun, conspiratorial gossip, but never with malice or envy."
Donations may be made in Sischy’s memory to the Studio Museum in Harlem and City Critters of New York.
