The photobook that defined a generation: 69 black-and-white photographs in Cindy Sherman's seminal cinematic style, made between 1977 and 1980

Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills, a series of 69 black-and-white photographs created between 1977 and 1980, is widely seen as one of the most original and influential achievements in recent art. Witty, provocative and searching, this lively catalogue of female roles inspired by the movies crystallizes widespread concerns in our culture, examining the ways we shape our personal identities and the role of the mass media in our lives. Sherman began making these pictures in 1977 when she was 23 years old. The first six were an experiment: fan-magazine glimpses into the life (or roles) of an imaginary blond actress, played by Sherman herself. The photographs look like movie stills--or perhaps publicity pix--purporting to catch the blond bombshell in unguarded moments at home. The protagonist is shown preening in the kitchen and lounging in the bedroom. Onto something big, Sherman tried other characters in other roles: the chic starlet at her seaside hideaway, the luscious librarian, the domesticated sex kitten, the hot-blooded woman of the people, the ice-cold sophisticate and a can-can line of other stereotypes. She eventually completed the series in 1980. She stopped, she has explained, when she ran out of clichés.

Other artists had drawn upon popular culture but Sherman's strategy was new. For her the pop-culture image was not a subject (as it had been for Walker Evans) or raw material (as it had been for Andy Warhol) but a whole artistic vocabulary, ready-made. Her film stills look and function just like the real ones--those 8 x 10 glossies designed to lure us into a drama we find all the more compelling because we know it isn't real. In the Untitled Film Stills there are no Cleopatras, no ladies on trains, no women of a certain age. There are, of course, no men. The 69 solitary heroines map a particular constellation of fictional femininity that took hold in postwar America--the period of Sherman's youth and the starting point for our contemporary mythology. In finding a form for her own sensibility, Sherman touched a sensitive nerve in the culture at large. Although most of the characters are invented, we sense right away that we already know them. That twinge of instant recognition is what makes the series tick and it arises from Cindy Sherman's uncanny poise. There is no wink at the viewer, no open irony, no camp.

In 1995, The Museum of Modern Art purchased the series from the artist, preserving the work in its entirety. This book marks the first time that the complete series will be published as a unified work, with Sherman herself arranging the pictures in sequence.

New experiments in digital self-portraiture from the endlessly inventive Pictures Generation pioneer

This publication presents a new body of work by Cindy Sherman that continues her explorations of the genre of portraiture going back to her early work of the 1970s. Across 36 photographs, the artist collages parts of her own face to construct the identities of various sitters, using digital manipulation to accent the layered aspects and plasticity of the self. The book also includes a text by Sherman chronicling her process in the studio, offering an intimate glimpse into her thinking about the work.
Cindy Sherman (born 1954) came to prominence in the late 1970s with the Pictures Generation group alongside artists such as Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Louise Lawler. Sherman studied art at Buffalo State College in 1972 where she soon turned her attention to photography. In 1977, shortly after moving to New York, Sherman began her critically acclaimed Untitled Film Stills. By the mid to late 1980s her visual language began to explore the more grotesque aspects of humanity through the lens of horror and the abject, as seen in works such as Fairy Tales (1985) and Disasters (1986-89). Since the early 2000s, Sherman has used digital technology to further manipulate her roster of characters. In 2017, she began using Instagram to upload portraits that utilize a number of face-tuning apps, morphing the artist into a plethora of protagonists in kaleidoscopic settings. Sherman lives and works in New York, and is represented by Hauser & Wirth.

A comprehensive monograph on one of the most important and influential artists of our time, accompanying MoMA's major 2012 Cindy Sherman survey

Published to accompany the first major survey of Cindy Sherman's work in the United States in nearly 15 years, this publication presents a stunning range of work from the groundbreaking artist's 35-year career. Showcasing approximately 180 photographs from the mid-1970s to the present, including new works made for the exhibition and never before published, the volume is a vivid exploration of Sherman's sustained investigation into the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation. The book highlights major bodies of work including her seminal Untitled Film Stills (1977-80); centerfolds (1981); history portraits (1989-90); head shots (2000-2002); and two recent series on the experience and representation of aging in the context of contemporary obsessions with youth and status. An essay by curator Eva Respini provides an overview of Sherman's career, weaving together art historical analysis and discussions of the artist's working methods, and a contribution by art historian Johanna Burton offers a critical re-examination of Sherman's work in light of her recent series. A conversation between Cindy Sherman and filmmaker John Waters provides an enlightening view into the creative process.

An in-depth look at the disturbing and abject sides of the American photo artist's oeuvre

Throughout her career, Cindy Sherman (born 1954) has been interested in exposing the darker sides of human nature, noticeable both in her selection of subject matter (fairytales, disasters, sex, horror, surrealism) and in her disquieting interpretations of well-established photographic genres, such as film stills, fashion photography and society portraiture. Delving relentlessly into the more grotesque extremes of delusion, vanity and self-image, Sherman probes deeply into the masks and distractions we all employ to set apart our public and our private personae, and challenges us to consider how bizarre and unconvincing our attempts at projecting a semblance of normality can be. Attracting a certain degree of notoriety, intense and ongoing public interest as well as extensive critical acclaim, Sherman's works continue to challenge and intrigue in equal measure. This richly illustrated publication deploys a selection of works from across her career to highlight and acknowledge these particular aspects of her art. These images are accompanied by more recent work, as well as essays from well-known authors, filmmakers and artists who likewise deal with the grotesque, the uncanny and the extraordinary in their practice.

This small, gorgeously designed and carefully edited book--available in grey and beige cloth--presents all 20 photographs of a new body of work that Cindy Sherman completed in 2016. In these photographs, reminiscent (conceptually but not formally) of her earlier Film Stills, Sherman enacts variations on the theme of aging Hollywood actresses of the 1920s.
The series was inspired by her interest in early German Expressionist silent movies, which led her to further studies of the first wave of the Hollywood star system in the 1920s.
Here, Sherman's actresses are presented in the style of studio publicity shoots, against backgrounds that were carefully composed for each of the characters. With heavy make-up, elaborate hairdos, precisely chosen and arranged wardrobe and dresses, Sherman creates female characters that provoke a rich array of cultural associations.

When curators at Saint Louis's Contemporary Art Museum asked Cindy Sherman whether there was a moment in her career whose resonance might be underappreciated, one around which she might like to develop an exhibit and a book, she selected her earliest adult creative years, beginning while she was still a student at Buffalo State College in the mid-1970s. Working Girl is full of rarely seen pieces, and it features, for the first time, documentation of and stills from Sherman's 1975 animated short Doll Clothes, which is among the pieces that bring Sherman's early exploration of gender and identity into focus. The mostly small-scale work, including many early black-and-white, hand-colored, and sepia-toned photographs, is culled primarily from the artist's family members' collections and her own, and includes the pieces that laid the groundwork for her first major success, the acclaimed Film Stills series. Working Girl is a unique glimpse into the early development of Sherman's artistic practice, and into the genesis of her inimitable substance and style. It illuminates her conceptual approach to photography and foretells the career that would be launched in the late 1970s, positioning her as one of the most significant artists of our time.

This volume presents extensive groups of works from nearly all of Cindy Sherman's creative phases. The principle theme in Sherman's oeuvre is the staging of female role models. The American artist relies on stereotypes inscribed on our collective visual memory in a world saturated with media. In this roleplay with costumes, masks and prostheses, during which her own identity almost completely disappears, Sherman (born 1954) walks a fine line between staging and parody in her scrutiny of clichés and fears. The artist became well known for her multipart photo series Untitled Film Stills (1977-80), in which she embodies female characters from fictitious movie scenes from the 1950s. Her artistic principle has essentially not changed much since. In her later series with large-format color photographs, Sherman takes up such themes as fashion photography, fairytale figures, horror scenes and high-society ladies.