This volume presents extensive groups of works from nearly all of Cindy Sherman’s creative phases. The principle theme in Sherman’s oeuvre is the staging of female role models. The American artist relies on stereotypes inscribed on our collective visual memory in a world saturated with media. In this roleplay with costumes, masks and prostheses, during which her own identity almost completely disappears, Sherman (born 1954) walks a fine line between staging and parody in her scrutiny of clichés and fears. The artist became well known for her multipart photo series Untitled Film Stills (1977-80), in which she embodies female characters from fictitious movie scenes from the 1950s. Her artistic principle has essentially not changed much since. In her later series with large-format color photographs, Sherman takes up such themes as fashion photography, fairytale figures, horror scenes and high-society ladies.Cindy Sherman is a ground-breaking American photographer, born in 1954. She began her “Film Stills” series at the age of 23, gaining early recognition, and has followed it with remarkable experiments in color photography. Her art has won her wide recognition and praise, and been collected and exhibited by major museums throughout the world since 1980. A major retrospective exhibition of her work was shown at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Dallas Museum of Art. Sherman is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. She is represented by Metro Pictures gallery in New York.