In 1972, Sherman enrolled in the visual arts department at Buffalo State College, where she began painting.
Career
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2008
99 Gansevoort St, New York, NY 10014, USA
Artist Cindy Sherman attends the 2008 Whitney Museum of American Art's gala and studio party at the Whitney Museum of American Art on October 20, 2008 in New York City.
(Oct. 20, 2008 - Source: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2009
548 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011
Musician David Byrne and photographer Cindy Sherman attend the Performa 09 Opening Night Benefit Dinner at X Initiative on October 30, 2009 in New York City.
(Oct. 29, 2009 - Source: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2009
New York City, United States
Photographer Cindy Sherman and musician David Byrne attend Creative Time's annual benefit at the 69th Regiment Armory on May 6, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
(May 5, 2009 - Source: Amy Sussman/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2010
499 Broadway New York, NY 10012
Artist Cindy Sherman and actress/author Molly Ringwald attend the Molly Ringwald book launch hosted by Swarovski CRYSTALLIZED at Swarovski CRYSTALLIZED Concept Store on April 27, 2010 in New York City.
(April 26, 2010 - Source: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2010
261 W 47th St, New York, NY 10036, USA
Photographer Cindy Sherman attends the opening night of "Time Stands Still" on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on January 28, 2010 in New York City.
(Jan. 27, 2010 - Source: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2011
New York City, United States
Marc Jacobs and Cindy Sherman attend Glamour's 2011 Women of the Year Awards on November 7, 2011 in New York City.
(Nov. 6, 2011 - Source: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2011
New York City, United States
Cindy Sherman accepts an award onstage at Glamour's 2011 Women of the Year Awards on November 7, 2011 in New York City.
(Nov. 6, 2011 - Source: Theo Wargo/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2011
368 8th Ave, New York, NY 10001, USA
Actor Rob Brydon, musician David Byrne, actor Steve Coogan and artist Cindy Sherman attend the Tribeca Film Festival after-party for The Trip hosted by Heineken at The Chelsea Room on April 21, 2011 in New York City.
(April 20, 2011 - Source: Jemal Countess/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2011
1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA
(L-R) Designer Consuelo Castiglioni, artist Cindy Sherman and model Anouk Lepere attend the "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2011 in New York City.
(May 1, 2011 - Source: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2012
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, USA
Photographers Cindy Sherman and Chuck Close attend the 2012 Party In The Garden Benefit at the Museum of Modern Art on May 22, 2012 in New York City.
(May 21, 2012 - Source: Theo Wargo/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2013
159 Pioneer St, Brooklyn, NY 11231, USA
Cindy Sherman, Todd Thomas and Alex O'Dair attend the Rachel Comey fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 at the Pioneer Works Center for Arts & Innovation on September 4, 2013 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
(Sept. 3, 2013 - Source: Cindy Ord/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2013
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, USA
(L-R) Marie-Josee Kravis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cindy Sherman, Ellsworth Kelly and Gerry Speyer attend the 2013 Party In The Garden at the Museum of Modern Art on May 21, 2013 in New York City.
(May 20, 2013 - Source: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2014
945 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021, USA
Artist Cindy Sherman and filmmaker Jonas Mekas attend the 2014 Whitney Gala presented by Louis Vuitton at The Breuer Building on November 19, 2014 in New York City.
(Nov. 18, 2014 - Source: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2014
1941 Broadway, New York, NY 10023, USA
Artist Cindy Sherman attends 2014 Women's Leadership Award Honoring Stella McCartney at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on November 13, 2014 in New York City.
(Nov. 12, 2014 - Source: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2014
80 Columbus Cir, New York, NY 10023, USA
Cindy Sherman attends the 2014 New York Live Arts Gala at Mandarin Oriental Hotel on April 22, 2014 in New York City.
(April 21, 2014 - Source: Rob Kim/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2014
Paris, France
(L-R) Cindy Sherman, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve attend the Louis Vuitton show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2014-2015 on March 5, 2014 in Paris, France.
(March 4, 2014 - Source: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Europe)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2014
Paris, France
Cindy Sherman attends the Louis Vuitton show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2014-2015 on March 5, 2014 in Paris, France.
(March 4, 2014 - Source: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Europe)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2015
1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128, USA
Cindy Sherman attends the 2015 Guggenheim International Gala Dinner made possible by Dior at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on November 5, 2015 in New York City.
(Nov. 4, 2015 - Source: Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2015
1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128, USA
(L-R) Jean-Georges d'Orazio, Cindy Sherman and Raf Simons attend the 2015 Guggenheim International Gala Dinner made possible by Dior at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on November 5, 2015 in New York City.
(Nov. 4, 2015 - Source: Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2015
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, USA
Artist Jeff Koons and photographer Cindy Sherman attend the Museum Of Modern Art's 2015 Party In The Garden at Museum of Modern Art on June 2, 2015 in New York City.
(June 1, 2015 - Source: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2015
508 W 37th St, New York, NY 10018, USA
(L-R) Cindy Sherman, Barbara Sukowa and Robert Longo attend the Narciso Rodriguez fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall 2015 at SIR Stage37 on February 17, 2015 in New York City.
(Feb. 16, 2015 - Source: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2017
3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris, France
A woman looks at an artwork untitled "#150 1985" by US photographer Cindy Sherman as she visits the Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain - FIAC) at the Grand Palais, in Paris, during the press opening on Octobre 18, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / BERTRAND GUAY / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION
(Oct. 17, 2017 - Source: AFP)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2017
New York City, United States
Cindy Sherman is on the TIME 100 2017 list.
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2018
11 Wall St, New York, NY 10005, USA
Glenda Bailey and photographer Cindy Sherman attend the Calvin Klein Collection front row during New York Fashion Week at New York Stock Exchange on February 13, 2018 in New York City.
(Feb. 12, 2018 - Source: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images North America)
Gallery of Cindy Sherman
2018
1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128, USA
Ann Temkin and Cindy Sherman attend MOMA's Party in the Garden 2018 at The Museum of Modern Art on May 31, 2018 in New York City.
(May 30, 2018 - Source: Andrew Toth/Getty Images North America)
Artist Cindy Sherman attends the 2008 Whitney Museum of American Art's gala and studio party at the Whitney Museum of American Art on October 20, 2008 in New York City.
(Oct. 20, 2008 - Source: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images North America)
Musician David Byrne and photographer Cindy Sherman attend the Performa 09 Opening Night Benefit Dinner at X Initiative on October 30, 2009 in New York City.
(Oct. 29, 2009 - Source: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images North America)
Photographer Cindy Sherman and musician David Byrne attend Creative Time's annual benefit at the 69th Regiment Armory on May 6, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
(May 5, 2009 - Source: Amy Sussman/Getty Images North America)
Artist Cindy Sherman and actress/author Molly Ringwald attend the Molly Ringwald book launch hosted by Swarovski CRYSTALLIZED at Swarovski CRYSTALLIZED Concept Store on April 27, 2010 in New York City.
(April 26, 2010 - Source: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images North America)
Photographer Cindy Sherman attends the opening night of "Time Stands Still" on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on January 28, 2010 in New York City.
(Jan. 27, 2010 - Source: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images North America)
Marc Jacobs and Cindy Sherman attend Glamour's 2011 Women of the Year Awards on November 7, 2011 in New York City.
(Nov. 6, 2011 - Source: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images North America)
Cindy Sherman accepts an award onstage at Glamour's 2011 Women of the Year Awards on November 7, 2011 in New York City.
(Nov. 6, 2011 - Source: Theo Wargo/Getty Images North America)
Actor Rob Brydon, musician David Byrne, actor Steve Coogan and artist Cindy Sherman attend the Tribeca Film Festival after-party for The Trip hosted by Heineken at The Chelsea Room on April 21, 2011 in New York City.
(April 20, 2011 - Source: Jemal Countess/Getty Images North America)
(L-R) Designer Consuelo Castiglioni, artist Cindy Sherman and model Anouk Lepere attend the "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2011 in New York City.
(May 1, 2011 - Source: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images North America)
Photographers Cindy Sherman and Chuck Close attend the 2012 Party In The Garden Benefit at the Museum of Modern Art on May 22, 2012 in New York City.
(May 21, 2012 - Source: Theo Wargo/Getty Images North America)
Cindy Sherman, Todd Thomas and Alex O'Dair attend the Rachel Comey fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 at the Pioneer Works Center for Arts & Innovation on September 4, 2013 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
(Sept. 3, 2013 - Source: Cindy Ord/Getty Images North America)
(L-R) Marie-Josee Kravis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cindy Sherman, Ellsworth Kelly and Gerry Speyer attend the 2013 Party In The Garden at the Museum of Modern Art on May 21, 2013 in New York City.
(May 20, 2013 - Source: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images North America)
Artist Cindy Sherman and filmmaker Jonas Mekas attend the 2014 Whitney Gala presented by Louis Vuitton at The Breuer Building on November 19, 2014 in New York City.
(Nov. 18, 2014 - Source: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images North America)
Artist Cindy Sherman attends 2014 Women's Leadership Award Honoring Stella McCartney at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on November 13, 2014 in New York City.
(Nov. 12, 2014 - Source: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images North America)
Cindy Sherman attends the 2014 New York Live Arts Gala at Mandarin Oriental Hotel on April 22, 2014 in New York City.
(April 21, 2014 - Source: Rob Kim/Getty Images North America)
(L-R) Cindy Sherman, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve attend the Louis Vuitton show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2014-2015 on March 5, 2014 in Paris, France.
(March 4, 2014 - Source: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Europe)
Cindy Sherman attends the Louis Vuitton show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2014-2015 on March 5, 2014 in Paris, France.
(March 4, 2014 - Source: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Europe)
Cindy Sherman attends the 2015 Guggenheim International Gala Dinner made possible by Dior at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on November 5, 2015 in New York City.
(Nov. 4, 2015 - Source: Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images North America)
(L-R) Jean-Georges d'Orazio, Cindy Sherman and Raf Simons attend the 2015 Guggenheim International Gala Dinner made possible by Dior at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on November 5, 2015 in New York City.
(Nov. 4, 2015 - Source: Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images North America)
Artist Jeff Koons and photographer Cindy Sherman attend the Museum Of Modern Art's 2015 Party In The Garden at Museum of Modern Art on June 2, 2015 in New York City.
(June 1, 2015 - Source: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images North America)
(L-R) Cindy Sherman, Barbara Sukowa and Robert Longo attend the Narciso Rodriguez fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall 2015 at SIR Stage37 on February 17, 2015 in New York City.
(Feb. 16, 2015 - Source: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images North America)
3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris, France
A woman looks at an artwork untitled "#150 1985" by US photographer Cindy Sherman as she visits the Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain - FIAC) at the Grand Palais, in Paris, during the press opening on Octobre 18, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / BERTRAND GUAY / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION
(Oct. 17, 2017 - Source: AFP)
Glenda Bailey and photographer Cindy Sherman attend the Calvin Klein Collection front row during New York Fashion Week at New York Stock Exchange on February 13, 2018 in New York City.
(Feb. 12, 2018 - Source: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images North America)
Ann Temkin and Cindy Sherman attend MOMA's Party in the Garden 2018 at The Museum of Modern Art on May 31, 2018 in New York City.
(May 30, 2018 - Source: Andrew Toth/Getty Images North America)
Cindy Sherman, in full Cynthia Morris Sherman, is an American photographer known for her images - particularly her elaborately “disguised” self-portraits - that comment on social role-playing and sexual stereotypes.
Background
Sherman was born on January 19, 1954, in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the youngest of the five children of Dorothy and Charles Sherman. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to the township of Huntington, Long Island. Her father worked as an engineer for Grumman Aircraft. Her mother taught reading to children with learning difficulties.
Education
In 1972, Sherman enrolled in the visual arts department at Buffalo State College, where she began painting. During this time, she began to explore the ideas which became a hallmark of her work: She dressed herself as different characters, cobbled together from thrift-store clothing. Frustrated with what she saw as the limitations of painting as a medium of art, she abandoned it and took up photography. She spent the remainder of her college education focused on photography. Though Sherman had failed a required photography class as a freshman, she repeated the course with Barbara Jo Revelle, whom she credited with introducing her to conceptual art and other contemporary forms. At college she met Robert Longo, a fellow artist who encouraged her to record her process of "dolling up" for parties. This was the beginning of her Untitled Film Still series.
In 1977, Cindy began work on Untitled Film Stills (1977–80), one of her best-known series. The series of 8 × 10-inch black-and-white photographs featuring Sherman in a variety of roles is reminiscent of film noir and presents viewers with an ambiguous portrayal of women as sex objects. Sherman stated that the series was “about the fakeness of role-playing as well as contempt for the domineering ‘male’ audience who would mistakenly read the images as sexy.” She continued to be the model in her photographs, donning wigs and costumes that evoke images from the realms of advertising, television, film, and fashion and that, in turn, challenge the cultural stereotypes supported by these media.
During the 1980s Sherman began to use colour film, to exhibit very large prints, and to concentrate more on lighting and facial expression. Using prosthetic appendages and liberal amounts of makeup, Sherman moved into the realm of the grotesque and the sinister with photographs that featured mutilated bodies and reflected such concerns as eating disorders, insanity, and death. Her work became less ambiguous, focusing perhaps more on the results of society’s acceptance of stereotyped roles for women than upon the roles themselves.
Sherman returned to ironic commentary upon clichéd female identities in the 1990s, introducing mannequins into some of her photographs, and in 1997 she directed the dark comedic film Office Killer. Two years later she exhibited disturbing images of savaged dolls and doll parts that explored her interest in juxtaposing violence and artificiality. Sherman continued these juxtapositions in a 2000 series of photographs in which she posed as Hollywood women with overblown makeup and silicone breast implants, again achieving a result of enigmatic pathos. That same year a major retrospective of her work was exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. A 2012 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was accompanied by a film series comprising movies that Sherman saw as having influenced her work. In 2013, Sherman was invited to organize a show within that year's Venice Biennale.
In 2016, after a sabbatical from her studio which was spent "coming to terms with health issues and getting older," Sherman produced and staged her first photo gallery in five years. The series, "The Imitation of Life," named after a 1959 melodrama by Douglas Sirk, tackles aging by presenting Sherman in highly stylized glamour portraits inspired by the divas of old Hollywood, such as Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, and Ruby Keeler. The series was exhibited in 2016 at the Metro Pictures Gallery in New York City, and also at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. In 2017 it was shown at the Spruth Magers gallery in Berlin, Germany, and at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.
Sherman's work is often linked to feminism, since her photos call attention to the objectification of women in the media. Sherman's 1981 series Centerfolds contains pseudo-voyeuristic images of young women. Her 2008 series Society Pictures addresses the obsession with female youth and beauty in American society. Her most recent series, the 2016 Imitation of Life, explores the glamour that can be found within mature women. By using stylized, vintage costumes and heavy makeup, Sherman is rendered as a subject that looks almost artificial, aside from her conspicuously-placed, aged hands, which point to the reality behind the illusion.
However, Sherman does not consider her work or herself to be feminist, stating "The work is what it is and hopefully it's seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I'm not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff."
Sherman herself has identified an uncertainty toward the Untitled series' relationship with the male gaze. In a 1991 interview with David Brittain in Creative Camera, Sherman said that "I didn't really analyze it at the time as far as knowing that I was commenting upon some feminist issue. The theories weren't there at all... But now I can look back on some of them, and I think some of them are a little blatantly obvious, too much like the original pin-up pictures of those times, so I have mixed feelings about them now as a whole series."
In 2012, she joined Yoko Ono and nearly 150 fellow artists in the founding of Artists Against Fracking, a group in opposition to hydraulic fracturing to remove gas from underground deposits.
Sherman has expressed contempt for social media platforms, calling them "so vulgar." However, she maintains an active instagram account featuring her selfies.
Quotations:
“We’re all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don’t spend any time, or think they don’t, on preparing themselves for the world out there – I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world.”
“I feel I’m anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren’t self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.”
“I’ll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I’m really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.”
“Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren’t meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.”
“The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.”
“I am always surprised at all the things people read into my photos, but it also amuse me. That may be because I have nothing specific in mind when I’m working. My intentions are neither feminist nor political. I try to put double or multiple meanings into my photos, which might give rise to a greater variety of interpretations…”
“Some people have told me they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all.”
“I didn’t think of what I was doing as political. To me it was a way to make the best out of what I liked to do privately, which was to dress up.”
“I’m really just using the mirror to summon something I don’t even know until I see it.”
“If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already.. the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.”
“My ideas are not developed before I actually do the pieces.”
“The way I see it, as soon as I make a piece I’ve lost control of it.”
“I don’t analyze what I’m doing. I’ve read convincing interpretations of my work, and sometimes I’ve noticed something that I wasn’t aware of, but I think, at this point, people read into my work out of habit. Or I’m just very, very smart.”
“Every time you have to come up with a new body of work for a new show, you’re aware that people are just ready to rip you apart, they’re just waiting for you to fall or make the slightest trip up.”
“Believing in one’s own art becomes harder and harder when the public response grows fonder.”
“People think because it’s photography it’s not worth as much, and because it’s a woman artist, you’re still not getting as much – there’s still definitely that happening. I’m still really competitive when it comes to, I guess, the male painters and male artists. I still think that’s really unfair.”
“The work is what it is and hopefully it’s seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I’m not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff.”
“I didn’t want to make “high” art, I had no interest in using paint, I wanted to find something that anyone could relate to without knowing about contemporary art. I wasn’t thinking in terms of precious prints or archival quality; I didn’t want the work to seem like a commodity.”
“One reason I was interested in photography was to get away from the preciousness of the art object.”
“I didn’t have any interest in traditional art.”
Membership
In 2010, Sherman was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Royal Academy of Arts
,
London
2010
Personality
The artist parodies the whole gamut of media-driven roles, from jilted lover to femme fatale to the perfect housewife. Her own identity remains concealed behind costumes and wigs.
Quotes from others about the person
When writing about Sherman's "Film Stills" in the journal October, the scholar Douglas Crimp states that Sherman's work is "a hybrid of photography and performance art that reveals femininity to be an effect of representation."
Interests
Sherman long spent her summers in Catskill Mountains. In 2000, she bought songwriter Marvin Hamlisch's 4,200-square-foot house on 0.4 acre in Sag Harbor for $1.5 million. She later acquired a 19th-century home on a ten-acre waterfront property on Accabonac Harbor in East Hampton, New York.
Connections
Sherman married director Michel Auder in 1984, making her stepmother to Auder's daughter, Alexandra, and her half-sister Gaby Hoffmann. They divorced in 1999. From 2007 to 2011, she had a relationship with the artist David Byrne. Between 1991 and 2005, she lived in a fifth-floor co-op loft at 84 Mercer Street in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood; she later sold it to actor Hank Azaria. She bought two floors in a 10-story condo building overlooking the Hudson River in West Soho, and today uses one as her apartment and the other as her studio and office.