Greer Lankton (April 21, 1958 – November 18, 1996), was an American artist known for creating lifelike sewn dolls that were often modeled on friends or celebrities and posed in elaborate theatrical settings. She was a key figure in the East Village art scene of the 1980s in New York. Early life Greer Lankton was born in Flint, Michigan, to a Presbyterian minister and his wife. It was during her rough childhood as a "feminine boy" that she began creating dolls. "It was when I was about ten years old ... I used to make dolls out of hollyhocks and all types of flowers. Pipe cleaner dolls and things like that. I started taking it seriously by the time I went to college when I was 17." Lankton was often teased by peers, and on more than one occasion experienced physical harassment. Lankton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and later Pratt Institute in New York. She changed her name and had gender affirmation surgery at the age of 21, while she was a student at Pratt. Lankton's father Bill convinced the church's board to cover Greer's surgery under the church's health insurance. She had previously been the subject of a local newspaper article about people transitioning to a new gender. Work Lankton said in interviews that the surgery "made me focus on bodies. I was always thinking about bodies, and if you think you have the wrong body, you're always going to think about it." Gender and sexuality are recurring themes in Lankton's art. Her dolls are created in the likeness of those society calls "freaks", and have often been compared to the surrealist works of Hans Bellmer, who made surreal dolls with interchangeable limbs. She created figures that were simultaneously distressing and glamorous, as if they were both victim and perpetrator of their existence. In 1981, Lankton was featured in the seminal "New York/New Wave" exhibition at P.S.1 in Long Island City and began to show her work in the East Village at Civilian Warfare, where she had solo shows in 1983, 1984, and 1985. She gained an almost cult following among East Village residents from her highly theatrical window displays she designed for Einstein's, the boutique run by her husband, Paul Monroe, at 96 East Seventh Street. Besides her more emotionally charged dolls, Lankton also created commissioned portrait dolls. These include a 1989 doll of Diana