Ingrid Barbara Sischy (/ˈsɪʃi/;[1] March 2, 1952 – July 24, 2015) was a South African-born American writer and editor who specialized in covering art, photography, and fashion.

The family had had to leave South Africa because Sischy's mother was in danger of being arrested for her involvement in an activist group, the Black Sash, that non-violently protested apartheid.

In 1967, the family moved to Rochester, New York, where Sischy's father became the head of radiation oncology at Highland Hospital.

[14] After graduating from college, Sischy took a series of odd jobs and entry-level positions in the art world, including at galleries.

She was hired, and almost immediately fired, by the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where the dress code and atmosphere made her feel untrue to herself.

[10] In 1979, at the age of 27, Sischy was appointed editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine by businessman and publisher Anthony Korner and Amy Baker Sandback.

[19][20][21] She left Artforum in 1988, to become a consulting editor at The New Yorker and work on the AIDS virus, which had begun to decimate the downtown artist community.

[32][33] She was featured in the 2011 documentary film !Women Art Revolution, where she discussed her contributions to the feminist movement of female artists in the 1970s.

[36] Although she was in at least one long-term relationship with a woman from the time she was in college, it was a New Yorker review of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe photography show, "The Perfect Moment," where Sischy came out publicly as a lesbian.