Cindy Sherman and the work series that reshaped portraiture

From the AD HOC NEWS Art Desk » Work Series & Retrospective Desk - The editors cover exhibitions, auctions, collections, prizes and artistic positions. Published: June 27, 2026 · Last checked: June 27, 2026, 10:29 PM

Cindy Sherman has, over five decades, used staged self-portraiture to dissect how images construct identity and power. Her serial approach, from Untitled Film Stills to later grotesque and digital bodies, has turned each work group into a compact study of visual culture.

The breakthrough film stills

Sherman began the iconic series Untitled Film Stills between 1977 and 1980, producing 70 black-and-white photographs that mimic cinematic publicity stills while questioning stereotypes of women on screen. The Museum of Modern Art in New York holds the complete set in its collection.

In these images, Sherman plays a range of invented characters, from ingénues to office workers, using costume and minimal props to suggest implied narratives. According to MoMA’s collection text, the series was first exhibited in 1980 and quickly became a touchstone for postmodern photography and feminist art discourse.

From centerfolds to history portraits

Following the film stills, Sherman developed the color series often referred to as Centerfolds or Untitled (1981), initially commissioned by Artforum but ultimately not published there. MoMA notes that these horizontal compositions reference magazine centerfold formats while denying voyeuristic access.

In the late 1980s, Sherman produced the History Portraits, staging herself in elaborate costumes loosely based on Old Master paintings. The National Gallery of Art in Washington describes how these works exaggerate wigs, prosthetics and painterly backdrops to expose the constructed nature of historical authority in portraiture.

The grotesque series of the 1990s

In the 1990s, Sherman’s work turned toward abjection and the grotesque. The series often grouped under Sex Pictures features mannequins, prosthetic body parts and staged fluids, removing her physical presence while intensifying the constructed body.

Parallel bodies of work explored clowns and theatrical archetypes. The series commonly referred to as Clowns uses saturated color, artificial lighting and exaggerated makeup to destabilize the boundary between comic performance and menace, a tension highlighted in institutional texts from major museums that have acquired works from this group.

Society portraits and aging personas

In the 2000s, Sherman developed Society Portraits, portraying aging socialites, patrons and ambiguous professional women in opulent interiors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has analyzed how these images use subtle digital retouching to suggest both privilege and fragility.

These works continue her method of embodying constructed roles while letting costume, pose and backdrop carry much of the narrative. Museum essays note that the series marks a shift toward more overt engagement with class, wealth and the visual codes of philanthropy and celebrity.

Digital experimentation and Instagram avatars

More recent bodies of work show Sherman’s sustained interest in digital manipulation. Exhibitions over the past decade have included large-scale color photographs in which faces and bodies are composited, stretched or overlaid with textures, extending her long-standing engagement with artifice into the realm of software-based image construction.

Sherman has also experimented with social media personas, using Instagram as a testing ground for distorted selfies and masks. These informal images, documented in museum and press commentary, feed into gallery works that treat the feed as another stage for role-play and identity construction.

How Cindy Sherman builds a series

Sherman typically develops a series through extended studio experimentation, working alone with cameras, lighting, costumes and backdrops. Each work group remains distinct in palette, format and conceptual focus, from small black-and-white prints to monumental color photographs.

Across these series, she consistently appears both as subject and as material, using wigs, prosthetics and poses to shift between archetypes. Her process foregrounds photographic staging, making the construction of the image itself the central theme.

Where the practice stands now

Cindy Sherman’s practice currently centers on ongoing photographic series and digital experiments in her studio, with institutional holdings and past retrospectives keeping the major work groups in active circulation.

This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.