Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman

Fellow: Awarded 1983
Field of Study: Photography

Competition: US & Canada

Cindy Sherman was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, but moved to Long Island when she was three.  As a child, she loved to play dress-up and began using her first Brownie camera.  she graduated from SUNY College at Buffalo in 1976 witha degree in fine arts and moved to New York city the following year after being awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

She worked at the alternative gallery Artists Space between 1977 and 1981 while simultaneously developing her series Untitled Film Stills, which was to become emblematic of postmodernism or appropriation art.  Her 1982 series of centerfolds brought her international acclaim; subsequent series included takeoffs on fairy tales, fashion, pornography, old master paintings, and horror movies.  She received a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 1995.

In 1996, the Museum of Modern Art purchased the only complete set of seventy photos from the Untitled Film Stills, the same year she directed her film The Office Killer.

 

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