Annie Liebovitz, portrait of Cindy Sherman

When Cindy Sherman was starting out in the 1970s she worked on the front desk at Artists Space gallery in New York. She would appear dressed up in costume from her shoots. The fact that she would sometimes show up for work dressed as, say, a nurse, or in a pinkish suit à la Jackie Kennedy, but frumpier, with cat-eye glasses on, is now part of art-world lore.

This portrait of Sherman in her Lower Manhattan studio is by Annie Liebovitz. The curious over exposure seems to play on Sherman’s invisibility behind the masks of her staged characters.  Since she has always photographed herself the question of the real Cindy Sherman has been an issue. Liebovitz once portrayed her in Vanity Fair surrounded by lookalikes – see below. She even describes people being disappointed when meeting her since she is so mild-mannered compared to her extremist characters.

Sherman has a retrospective at MoMA this year and Vanity Fair online has a background article about it.

Annie Liebovitz, portrait of Cindy Sherman 1992