Illustration by Maria Manhattan
1954-present
Cindy Sherman was born on January 19, 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey and was raised on Long Island. She earned a B.A. in Fine Arts from the State University of New York, Buffalo and moved to New York City, where she became interested in photography and began exhibiting in 1976. The next year she began work on Untitled Film Stills, small black-and-white photographs featuring Sherman herself dressed up in the role of female characters from “B” movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Using color and a larger format, her more recent photographs combine elements from fairy tales and horror films. Sherman is best known for using photography and performance art to challenge the images and myths of femininity, popular culture, and mass media. In 1995, the Museum of Modern Art bought Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills for a reported $1 million and she won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.”
