Cindy Sherman

Metro Pictures, New York
Lambert Art Collection, Geneva
Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, May 18, 2007, lot 270
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Cindy Sherman, December 1982, n.p., no. 31, illustrated (another example exhibited)
New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Cindy Sherman, July - October 1987, no. 31, p. 17, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation, May - August 1989 (another example exhibited)
Wellington, New Zealand, The National Art Gallery; Hamilton, New Zealand, Waikato Museum of Art and History, Cindy Sherman, June - October 1989 (another example exhibited)
Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Directions Cindy Sherman: Film Stills, March - June 1995, no. 50, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Hamburg Deichtorhallen; Malmö Konsthall; Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Cindy Sherman: Photographic Works 1975-1995, May 1995 - February 1996, no. 28, illustrated (another example exhibited).
Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art; Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art; Prague, Galerie Rudolfinum; London, Barbican Art Gallery; Bordeaux, CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux; Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art; Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cindy Sherman: Retrospective, November 1997 - January 2000, no. 32, pp. 72-73, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Canberra, National Gallery of Australia, Read My Lips, June - August 1998, p. 56 (another example exhibited)
Luxembourg, Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art Casino Luxembourg, Congrescos e Exposicions de Ponteverda; Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Veronica's Revenge, March 1999 - March 2001 (another example exhibited)
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Los Angeles, UCLA Hammer Museum, The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960-1982, October 2003 - May 2004, no. 153, p. 284, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Paris, Jeu de Paume; Bregenz, Kunsthaus Bregenz; Humlebaek, Louisiana Musuem of Modern Art; Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Cindy Sherman, May 2006 - September 2007, p. 244, illustrated (another example exhibited).
New York, Museum of Modern Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Dallas Museum of Art, Cindy Sherman, February 2012 - June 2013, no. 18, pp. 96 and 242, illustrated (another example exhibited)

Noriko Fuku, "A Woman of Parts," Art in America, May 29, 1987, p. 74, illustrated
Arthur Danto, Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Stills, New York, 1990, no. 35, illustrated
Rosalind Kraus, Cindy Sherman 1975-1993, New York, 1993, pp. 58-59 illustrated
Exh. Cat., Caracas, Museo de Bellas Artes, Cindy Sherman: Una selección de las colecciones de la Eli Broad Family Foundation, 1997, p. 34, illustrated
David Frankel, ed., Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, New York, 2003, p. 137, illustrated
Johanna Burton, ed., Cindy Sherman, Cambridge, 2006, no. 39, pp. 157-158, 164, 167 and 221, illustrated

This work is in very good condition overall. The bottom right corner of the sheet is slightly worn. Hinged to the matte in the top left and right corners. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Created between 1977 and 1980, Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills remain the most seminal and critically acclaimed series of her oeuvre. At only 23 years old, Sherman began by fashioning vintage-looking costumes and sets where she poses as the protagonist in scenes resembling moments in a film. Sherman has explained that she titled this series of images Film Stills “mostly because I was thinking of publicity stills like you’d see around 42nd Street, in boxes of hundreds of them for thirty-five cents each.” The series ultimately totaled 69 distinct vignettes depicting a range of female personae in various states of solitude, distress, contemplation, empowerment and sexual provocation.

Like genuine movie stills, Sherman’s images are intentionally ambiguous and vague, allowing the viewer to imbue the scenes with their own invention and interpretation, luring us into a drama we find all the more compelling because we know it is not real. Like all of Sherman’s photographic series, they provide a range of fictional portraits, usually of women, in which the artist functions as actress, director, wardrobe assistant, set designer and cameraman. Sherman’s heroines weave a narrative of stereotypical femininity reflective of postwar America, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, the period of Sherman's youth. Through her own self-discovery in the Film Stills, Sherman engenders a culturally resonant visual language that coincided with the blazing Feminist movement of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, ultimately pioneering a heightened female sensibility and empowerment.

In this carefully curated selection of Untitled Film Stills from the Sender Collection, the protagonist is shown lonely, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her implied husband (#50), silhouetted, in a seductive state of undress (#36), distraught in a low-budget motel, the wildly strewn clothing acting as a metonymy for her condition (#12), as a west coast hippie, her liberation underscored by her botanical surroundings (#47), demurely perched and contemplative on a lush hill (#57), captivated and startled by an unseen disturbance in a dilapidated urban scene (#60) and lastly, appearing disheveled, disoriented, with a suggestion of foul play (#29). Sotheby’s is honored to present these 7 outstanding examples of the Untitled Film Stills series as the following lots 450-456.