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CINDY SHERMAN (American, b. 1954) untitled FILM STILL #23 signed, editioned and dated on verso ge...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:100,000.00 - 150,000.00 USD
CINDY SHERMAN (American, b. 1954) untitled FILM STILL #23 signed, editioned and dated on verso ge...
CINDY SHERMAN
(American, b. 1954)
untitled FILM STILL #23
signed, editioned and dated on verso
gelatin silver print
30 x 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
1978
this print is number 3
from an edition of 3
ESTIMATE: $100,000-150,000
PROVENANCE
Metro Pictures, NEW YORK
Private Collection, EUROPE
Before Cindy Sherman switched her major to photography as an undergraduate at SUNY Buffalo, she was a painter, focusing even then on self-portraits and recreations of photographs from magazines. While in college, Sherman amassed a collection of costumes, vintage clothing, accessories and wigs that were not strictly for use in her art. She would—for fun, rather than artistic performance—transform herself with these props to attend social events around Buffalo (showing up to one party dressed as a pregnant woman, for example). Upon arrival in New York City in 1977, role-playing took a more serious turn in Sherman’s art and she thus embarked on the Untitled Film Stills series, arguably the major cornerstone of postmodern photography.
This photograph, Untitled Film Still #23, depicts a blonde somewhere on the continuum between Hitchcock heroine and hard-bitten film noir dame. Though the sweet white collar and slightly naÔve straw cloche (complete with bow) add a certain element of feminine innocence to the subject’s urban, tailored ensemble, we can guess that whatever girlish hope our heroine possessed this morning while dressing is fading fast. Her anxious look, as if attempting to put a face to ominous footsteps following her, is underscored by the image’s composition. The subject’s leftward glance and her position at the right edge of the frame possess great narrative power, leaving us wondering exactly what threat is looming out of our view, imminently rushing in to fill the void in the left half of the frame.