Cindy Sherman

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Lore & Background

Sherman was born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the youngest of five children. Her family moved to Huntington, Long Island, shortly after her birth. Her father worked as an engineer for Grumman Aircraft; her mother taught reading to children with learning difficulties. Sherman has described her mother as good to a fault, and her father as strict and cruel. She was raised Episcopalian. In 1972, she enrolled in Buffalo State University, majoring in painting. Frustrated with painting's limitations, she abandoned it and took up photography. At college she met artist Robert Longo, who encouraged her to record her process of 'dolling up' for parties. After graduating with a BA in 1976, she began her Untitled Film Stills series in 1977. In 1974, together with Longo, Charles Clough and Nancy Dwyer, she created Hallwalls, an arts center intended as a space that would accommodate artists from diverse backgrounds.

Reader's Guide

Sherman works in series, typically photographing herself in a range of costumes, assuming multiple roles as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress, and model. Her early work includes Bus Riders (1976–2000), a series featuring the artist as a variety of meticulously observed characters, including the use of blackface, which drew criticism for insensitivity to race. Her landmark series Untitled Film Stills (1977–80) consists of 69 black-and-white photographs in which she poses as different roles (librarians, hillbillies, seductresses) in settings reminiscent of Italian neorealism or American film noir. Sherman avoided titles to preserve ambiguity. The series was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan for an estimated $1 million in 1995. Untitled Film Still #21 was listed as one of the 100 influential photographs by TIME Magazine. Sherman is considered part of the Pictures Generation, along with artists like Laurie Simmons, Louise Lawler, and Barbara Kruger.

Did You Know?

• Sherman failed a required photography class as a freshman, then repeated it with Barbara Jo Revelle, who introduced her to conceptual art.
• The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan purchased the Untitled Film Stills series for an estimated $1 million in 1995.
• Untitled Film Still #21 was listed as one of the 100 influential photographs by TIME Magazine.
• Sherman co-founded Hallwalls arts center in 1974 with Robert Longo, Charles Clough, and Nancy Dwyer.
• She has said that when she looks at her pictures, 'I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.'

The Buffalo Pivot

Cynthia Morris Sherman was born in January 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the youngest of five children. Her family soon moved to Huntington on Long Island, where her father engineered for Grumman Aircraft and her mother taught reading to children with learning difficulties. Raised Episcopalian, Sherman later characterized her mother as "good to a fault" and her father as strict and cruel. In 1972 she enrolled at Buffalo State University, majoring in painting. There she began dressing in thrift-store outfits and playing imagined characters, but grew frustrated with what she perceived as painting's limitations. She recalled that she had been "meticulously copying other art" and realized she could channel her energy into an idea through a camera instead. After failing a required photography class as a freshman, she repeated it under Barbara Jo Revelle, who introduced her to conceptual art. A friendship with Robert Longo, who encouraged her to document her habit of "dolling up," planted the seed for her most celebrated series. In 1974 she co-founded Hallwalls, an inclusive arts center, with Longo, Charles Clough, and Nancy Dwyer. Exposure to the photo-based conceptual work of Hannah Wilke, Eleanor Antin, and Adrian Piper, alongside the broader Buffalo art scene, helped cement her identity within the Pictures Generation. She graduated with a BA in 1976.

Untitled Film Stills and the Breakthrough

Between 1977 and 1980, Sherman produced the series that would bring her international recognition: Untitled Film Stills. The collection comprises 69 black-and-white photographs in which she poses as archetypes drawn from B-movies and film noir—librarians, hillbillies, seductresses, and other stock female roles found in performance media. Rather than performing in a conventional theatrical sense, Sherman described the process as something that emerged organically. She explained that when she moved into close-up framing, she could no longer rely on background or atmosphere to convey narrative; the story had to come from the face alone. "Somehow the acting just happened," she recalled. The images deliberately evoke the visual grammar of arthouse cinema and popular genre pictures, placing the female figure in moments of anticipation, boredom, or seduction. The series crystallized a central question in her practice: how media constructs and circulates images of women, and how those images become internalized scripts. By inserting herself into these borrowed roles, Sherman made the constructed nature of femininity in popular culture visible, turning the camera into a tool for interrogation rather than mere documentation.

The Solo Studio and the Vanishing Self

Sherman's method is radically solitary. She works in series, shooting alone in her studio while simultaneously serving as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress, and model. No collaborator is present; every element of the image is her own decision. She describes the process as deeply intuitive, responding to light, mood, location, and costume, adjusting external details until the image feels right. She has spoken of standing before a mirror placed next to the camera, staring into it in what she calls a "trance-like" state, trying to become the character through the lens. When the right expression or posture appears, her intuition takes over in both the "acting" and the subsequent editing. "It's like magic," she has said. Yet despite the self-referential nature of the work, Sherman insists she feels anonymous within it. In a 1990 conversation with The New York Times, she stated that when she looks at the finished pictures she never sees herself; they are not self-portraits in any traditional sense. "Sometimes I disappear," she added, underscoring that the character, not the artist, is the true subject.

Stereotypes, Controversy, and Cultural Reach

Beyond the Film Stills, Sherman's body of work consistently interrogates how society packages and consumes images of women. The 1981 Centerfolds series, for instance, places her in the layout of a men's magazine, and she explained that she wanted a male reader to open the page expecting something lascivious and then feel like a "violator" upon encountering a woman who may be a victim. The goal was to make the viewer uncomfortable with their own assumptions. Her Bus Riders series (1976–2000), created for display on a city bus, featured cutout figures of meticulously observed characters lined along the advertising strip; the inclusion of blackface makeup generated significant debate, with some critics viewing it as insensitive and others as an exposure of embedded racism. Theatre critic Margo Jefferson argued the African-American figures lacked the range of features given to white ones, reading the work as a "stale visual myth" rather than irony. Other early projects, including Murder Mystery and Play of Selves, employed cutout figures to explore narrative and identity. Alongside Laurie Simmons, Louise Lawler, and Barbara Kruger, Sherman's work remains a cornerstone of the Pictures Generation, a cohort that reshaped how photography functions as a medium of cultural critique.

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