Cindy Sherman

American photographer, a highly respected New Yorker who frequently presents herself as the subject and model of her photographs. Rather than creating self-portraits per se, Cindy Sherman appears in disguise by wearing wigs and costumes, or she uses mannequin parts and props to create different identities. By thus showing various masks of femininity, she says, "I am trying to make people recognize something of themselves rather than me."

As a child growing up in Long Island, the artist became preoccupied with mirrors, dressing up and applying makeup, often fooling her neighbors by walking around the local streets as a little old lady. While a student at State University of Buffalo, NY 1972-76, she was notorious for appearing in public dressed as Lucille Ball. Switching her major from painting to photography, she graduated with a B.A. and moved to New York City in 1977.

Sherman established her reputation with the "Untitled Film Still" series of 1981, which she had begun in 1977. These 69 small black-and-white pictures that feature Sherman dressed in the guises of clichéd 1950s and 1960s B-movie heroines (housewife, schoolgirl, film noir vamp) mimic the sex object poses of women of the era. By appearing as these various personae Sherman also revealed the masquerade of (feminine) identity itself.

Moreover, by acting as both artist and model she destabilized the traditional gender roles of female object and male subject. Her voyeuristic "Centerfolds," 1981 and "Fashion," 1983-84 series continued to engage with post-modern feminist discourse concerning the construction of woman-as-image. Feeling pigeonholed by the discourse surrounding her work and frustrated by the demand of an ever-increasing market for her photographs, Sherman then attempted to make photographs that were "unsaleable." She used color and exhibited very large prints. Rather than depicting herself she produced ultra fantastic, lurid and visceral imagery.