Photo: New Zealand Government, Office of the Governor-General / CC BY 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Cindy Sherman is the artist who taught me that a self-portrait can be the least self-revealing thing imaginable. In the Untitled Film Stills she is the photographer, model, stylist, and director all at once, conjuring fictional women from movies that never existed, and the genius is that she's never really 'in' any of them. That slipperiness, the way she interrogates how images of women get manufactured, is why she sits at the center of every conversation about postmodern photography. The shelf of awards, from the MacArthur to the Wolf Prize, is well earned. Few artists have built an entire universe out of disappearing into other people.
Overview
Cindy Sherman (born January 19, 1954, in Glen Ridge, New Jersey) is an American photographer and artist widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in contemporary art. A graduate of Buffalo State College, she is best known for her conceptual self-portraits, especially the Untitled Film Stills series, in which she casts herself in constructed scenes to explore identity and the representation of women. Her honors include the MacArthur Fellowship (1995), the Hasselblad Award (1999), the Praemium Imperiale (2016), and the Wolf Prize in Arts (2020).
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Cindy Sherman
- Name (Japanese)
- シンディ・シャーマン
- Reading
- しんでぃ・しゃーまん
- Born
- January 19, 1954 (age 72)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Capricorn / Horse
- Origin
- Glen Ridge, New Jersey, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- Photographer / Film director / Women's rights activist / Director / Artist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Buffalo State College
Awards & achievements
- 1995 MacArthur Fellowship
- 1999 Hasselblad Award
- Imperial Ring of the City of Goslar
- 2016 Praemium Imperiale
- 2020 Wolf Prize in Arts
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- 2022 Time 100
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Photographer — see all → · Film director — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.