Ingrid Sischy, 63, former editor in chief of Interview and a highly regarded writer on culture in general, died Friday morning at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of breast cancer. Everyone in the art fashion and publishing world knew Ingrid. New York is not such a big town really, especially when it comes to culture and Ingrid was at the center of it for 35+ years.
One of the best and admired editors and writers that straddled the fashion and art worlds, Sischy was born in South Africa and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was editor of Art Forum from ’79 to ’87 and was a photography and fashion critic of the New Yorker from 1988 to 1996.
In ’97, Ingrid became a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and wrote cover stories about Madonna, Nicole Kidman and Kristen Stewart, as well as big feature stories on John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons and Jean Michel Basquiat.
She served as editor of Interview from ’89 to ’08 with her partner, Interview president and publisher Sandy Brant. Graydon Carter wrote a wonder tribute for Vanity Fair today where he said this;
“She shared her life with Sandy Brant. In the beginning they were editor and publisher of Interview magazine. Over the years their relationship became more personal, and once together, they became inseparable. It was rare to see one without the other. At the end, they had been together for 25 years, and married for the last couple of weeks.”
I worked at several of the same publications that Ingrid worked at, like Vanity Fair, but never at the same time. She and Sandy lived right around the corner and I would see them from time to time on our corner. We had many mutual friends in common but I can’t say I knew her well. Her name came up recently with regard to a specific project and it was generally agreed, she knew her stuff but she could be a tough cookie. She was a well-respected as a cross-pollinator of culture and she was a New York fixture in the same way you might think Fran Lebowitz is. They really don’t make editors with her knowledge like that anymore. She’ll be missed. (Photo, Gasper Tringale)