Cindy Sherman is one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. This survey exhibition, her first in the United Kingdom for almost ten years, brings together over 50 works that span the artist’s career. It includes new photographs shown for the first time. The exhibition centres on many of the ‘characters’ and ‘portraits’ Sherman has created over the past three decades. Since the mid-1970s, she has been taking photographs of herself, combining the roles of director, photographer and leading actress to create provocative and intriguing images in both black and white and colour. Never interested in making self-portraits, the artist has adopted a variety of personas and disguises, which explore and expose well-defined images and stereotypes of women in Western society throughout the ages. Sherman first became known in the late 1970s for her series Untitled Film Stills, black-and-white photographs in which she mimicked the characters and settings of imaginary 1950s and 60s Hollywood B-movies. This was followed by her 1980s work in colour making reference to fashion photography, television, horror movies and pornography. In 1989-90 her history portraits played off old-master paintings, re-interpreting issues of gender and status. More recently, she has focused on ordinary women who present themselves in extraordinary ways. In her newest work, featured at the Serpentine Gallery for the first time, Sherman takes up the subject of clowns. In light of her career-long interest in artifice and masquerade, this subject mirrors her self-transformation through costumes, makeup, wigs and prosthetics. Here she is interested in the people beneath the costumes as much as the outward characters they present. Examples of each of these important bodies of work, selected in close association with the artist, are included in the exhibition. Born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman has won numerous awards. Her work is included in major private and public collections throughout the world. This exhibition, organised by the Serpentine Gallery, will be presented at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 6 December 2003 – 7 March 2004.