Sylvia Sleigh (8 May 1916 – 24 October 2010) was a Welsh-born naturalised American realist painter who lived and worked in New York City.

[1] Sleigh later opened her own business in Brighton, England, where she made hats, coats, and dresses until she closed her shop at the start of World War II.

[2][4] Around 1970, from feminist 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 or odalisque.

[1] Some directly alluded to existing works, such as Philip Golub Reclining (1971), which appropriates the pose of the Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez.

[2][7] 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.

[6] The Turkish Bath (1973), a similarly gender-reversed version of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres'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, John Perreault, and Scott Burton.

[10] 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.

"[13] Likewise, her painting of Lilith (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.

Group Portrait are Nancy Spero, Howardena Pindell, Agnes Denes, Sari Dienes, Blythe Bohnen, Dotty Attie, and Mary Beth Edelson.

[10] 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, Selina Trieff, and Vernita Nemec.

[20] 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.

[19] These included paintings, sculptures, and prints by Cecile Abish, Dotty Attie, Helène Aylon, Blythe Bohnen, Louise Bourgeois, Ann Chernow, Rosalyn Drexler, Martha Edelheit, Audrey Flack, Shirley Gorelick, Nancy Grossman, Pegeen Guggenheim, Nancy Holt, Lila Katzen, Irene Krugman, Diana Kurz, Marion Lerner-Levine, Vernita Nemec, Betty Parsons, Ce Roser, Susan Sills, Michelle Stuart, Selina Trieff, Audrey Ushenko, Sharon Wybrants, and many others.

[26][27] A posthumous traveling solo exhibition was held at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen in Switzerland, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, and the Tate Liverpool between 2012 and 2013.

[2] As a visiting professor of painting, Sleigh was awarded the Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Professorship at Northwestern University in 1977.