Cindy Sherman. History Portraits

“Cindy Sherman’s work is structured into series, the best known of which are History Portraits and Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), which led to Cindy Sherman’s artistic breakthrough. In History Portraits, the artist carries out radical transformations of Old Master paintings. Using make-up, cloth drapes, and prostheses, she photographs herself in the poses in which the Old Masters portrayed women.

Christa Schneider presents an art-historical analysis of the History Portraits. Identifying a clear model for every single portrait (e.g. Botticelli and Rubens, François Boucher and Jacques-Louis David), she reveals Sherman’s extremely precise and enigmatic method of working in which the artistic media employed by Sherman–photography and acting–are surprisingly compatible with painting.”