ABSTRACT
Among those immortalized in Wilma Bulkin Siegel’s AIDS Quilt are IV drug users, hemophiliacs, a stockbroker, a hairstylist, a prostitute, a nurse, and an eighteen-month-old baby born with AIDS, whose mother was dying of AIDS and who spent the last five months of her life in hospice care. In the artist’s words: “As a physician, I was affiliated with one of the first hospices to care for patients with AIDS at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Upon my retirement, I felt “burnout” and could not return to medical issues. As my art became professional (I had done art as a hobby during my medical career), I combined my two professions. I felt that painting patients with AIDS could give them comfort and hope as well as dignity and long-lasting identity on paper.”
