“I don't think I can see the world through other people's eyes, but I can capture an attitude or a look that makes others think I can.” Cindy Sherman, 2008

From her 1970s Film Stills to these monumental portraits of society’s finest women, Cindy Sherman, the master of disguise, pursues a life-long exploration into the very nature of identity. This late series, known as the Society Portraits, depicts aging socialites, the wives of wealthy and powerful men, bedecked and adorned in their finest clothes and jewelry. They appear before faux royal backdrops, some against ascending Versailles-like staircases, others upon velvet cloaked settees. Roberta Smith describes the series as “stark, monumental society portraits of heavily made up, quietly desperate matrons of a certain age.” (R. Smith, “Photography’s Angel Provocateur: Cindy Sherman at Museum of Modern Art,” The New York Times, February 23, 2012). Donned in silk dresses, furs, and pearls, these women stand within luxurious spaces, their makeup heavily applied to hide their wrinkles; Sherman slyly comments on the inevitable signs of aging and the human impulse to disguise the ravages of time.

Over the past three decades, Sherman has transformed herself into many characters, including the film star, the secretary, the housewife, the bohemian, and the Old Master portrait subject. Her photographs set a scene with each article of clothing or prop carefully selected as a clue to a story or to the social role that Sherman is assuming. The characters she chooses to inhabit are not at all self-reflective, as she explains, they are “everything but me. If it seems too close to me, it’s rejected.” (Cindy Sherman in C. Vogel, “Cindy Sherman Unmasked,” The New York Times, February 16, 2012)

Even at a young age, Sherman’s interest remained grounded within the limitations of self-representation, as a means to investigate her own singularity while resolutely rejecting the typically “pretty” side of fashion and art. As she explains, “there are pictures of me dressed up as an old lady. I was more interested in being different from other little girls who would dress up as princesses or fairies or a pretty witch. I would be the ugly old witch or the monster.” This sustained pursuit to transform herself into the ugly witch or the vain and slightly grotesque subject is seen especially in the Society Portraits. The series subtly touches upon the underlying anxiety and tension that manifests itself within these women, who strive to maintain their illusive youthful perfection at any price. The present lot, Untitled #470, 2008 depicts a middle-aged brunette, dressed in a glaring red satin dress. Her three quarter stance conveys an air of aggression to the character, while her hardened gaze glares out at us. In her right hand she clutches a decorative fan, almost as a weapon of protection against her social competitors. She stands within a spectacular hallway reminiscent of a European palazzo; a decorative classical relief carving can be seen behind her left shoulder, with a Gothic window seen immediately behind her. The architectural elements of this lavish building only further highlights the unstoppable passing of time and the social pretensions of the portrait subject. Untitled #470, 2008 is enclosed in an antique, ornate frame, specified by Sherman. This adds another layer of aging and false opulence to the image and its physical character. Sherman explores the very nature of portraiture, while alluding to canonical oil portraits painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in the 16th century who was praised for his portraits’ “unsurpassed sureness” and “penetration into character.” Sherman has tapped into these same expectations of portraiture through the staged majesty of her imaginary likenesses. (E. Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530–1790, London: Penguin, 1978, p. 17)

The Society Portrait series, like Sherman’s 1981 Centerfolds series, places women on display who seem to betray a somewhat unstable psychological state. Her Centerfolds series captures a distraught woman upon a bed, gleaming with sweat, seemingly in the midst of a mental or emotional crisis. Some commentators have noted that the Society Portraits series coincides with the economic crisis of 2007-2008. The women depicted in the Society Portraits struggle to maintain their pride and sense of privilege in the wake of financial paralysis and its social consequences. Within the Centerfolds and Society Portraits, Sherman aims to provoke the viewer, to expose them to an image of vulnerability.

The heroine of Untitled #470, 2008, shows deep creases and wrinkles which run along the frown lines of this hardened socialite. Her face has been coated in a thick layer of makeup, red blocks of rouge run across her cheekbones, reminiscent of war paint, as she is ready to fight her inevitable decline with power and grace. Sherman has the eerie ability to conjure up these characters and perfectly executes their facial expressions, stances, and gazes; she exposes the complexity of her characters, both accentuating and stripping away the societal stereotypes that they appear to embody. “You think you may know them,” explains Museum of Modern Art curator, Eva Respini. “But in fact the more you look at them, the more complex and darker they seem. The same could be said of Cindy. How can such a mild-mannered, nice woman have such a wicked imagination that keeps inventing these fantastical characters over and over again?” (Eva Respini in C. Vogel, “Cindy Sherman Unmasked,” The New York Times, February 16, 2012)