Sisters, Saints and Sibyls

One of Nan Goldin’s most important series, this timely publication is set to align with a major career retrospective opening at the Grand Palais, Paris, in March 2026. Focusing on the life of her sister Barbara, Goldin brings together hospital reports, family snapshots, and her own photographs to construct a visual tapestry exploring addiction, abuse, trauma, and female resistance. Sisters, Saints and Sibyls stands, as Goldin herself notes, as "a tribute to my sister and to all rebellious women struggling to survive in society."

Barbara Goldin was born in May 1946, to Lillian Kantrovitz and Hyman Howard Goldin. At the age of twelve, she was sent to a psychiatric detention facility. Condemned for her defiant and sexually provocative attitude, Barbara spent the next six years in various facilities, before taking her own life in 1965, at the age of eighteen.

Sisters, Saints and Sibyls unflinchingly reveals the tragic story of Barbara’s life, using medical records and family photographs, alongside mythical illusions to Saint Barbara, to compose a haunting meditation on the broader mistreatment of female mental health in the twentieth century.

Barbara's story is intertwined with Goldin’s own descent into, and emergence from, addiction. Bringing the moments considered too shameful by others to the front of the page, Sisters, Saints and Sibyls is a liberatory experience, shining a light on the reality of addiction and trauma.

This publication is set to stand as the definitive edition of one of Goldin’s most important works.