Untitled Film Still #52

A movie that was never made

Untitled Film Still #52 belongs to the Untitled Film Stills, a suite of 70 black-and-white photographs Cindy Sherman made between 1977 and 1980. In every one she is the only figure, posed in the guise of a generic female character from the movies: the ingenue, the working girl, the vamp, the lonely housewife. The pictures borrow the look of 1950s and 1960s Hollywood, film noir, B movies and European art-house films, and they copy the format, scale and finish of the publicity stills studios used to sell films.

None of them is taken from a real film. 'Some people have told me they remember the movie that one of my images is derived from,' Sherman said, 'but in fact I had no film in mind at all.' Her raw material was still photographs, not movies: friends who worked at a New York bookstore brought home cheap film books, and she studied the pictures in them. The critic Rosalind Krauss called the results 'copies without originals.'

The titles are not titles. Sherman wanted to keep the pictures open, so she left them untitled, and the numbers were assigned by her gallery as a cataloguing system. Number 52 is simply where this image fell in that list.

She meant them to look disposable. When the pictures were first shown, each was priced at fifty dollars. 'I wanted them to seem cheap and trashy,' she said. 'Something you'd find in a novelty store and buy for a quarter. I didn't want them to look like art.'

Buffalo, then New York

Sherman was born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the youngest of five children, and grew up in Huntington, on Long Island. In 1972 she enrolled in the visual arts department at Buffalo State, where she majored in painting before abandoning it for the camera. 'I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead,' she recalled. She had failed a required photography class as a freshman and repeated it with Barbara Jo Revelle, whom she credited with introducing her to conceptual art.

In Buffalo she met the artist Robert Longo, who encouraged her to record herself 'dolling up' for parties, and in 1974 she, Longo, Charles Clough and Nancy Dwyer founded Hallwalls, an artist-run space. She graduated in 1976 and moved to New York in the summer of 1977, working as a gallery assistant and receptionist at Artists Space. The first Film Stills were made that year.

She shot the early pictures in her apartment, then moved out to the streets of the city, to the Longo family's beach house on Long Island, and on a road trip to Arizona with her parents. She was photographer, stylist, makeup artist and subject at once, and she worked to keep the characters distinct: 'When I see two blonds together I get nervous that they look too much alike.'

What is happening in #52

A woman lies across a bed with her head on a floral pillow. She wears a negligee, her long blonde hair spread out, and she looks away from the camera, lost in thought. It reads like a moment of wistfulness or despair from a noir melodrama, and the picture refuses to say which.

That restraint was deliberate. Sherman said real publicity stills were full of overacting because they were trying to sell the movie, and that she went looking, especially in European film stills, for women who looked almost expressionless. 'I knew that if I acted too happy, or too sad, or scared, if the emotional quotient was too high, the photograph would seem campy.'

As in nearly all the Film Stills, the character looks just off the frame, which leaves the viewer in the position of an unseen watcher. Sherman described the women as 'struggling with something, but I didn't know what,' and said she was drawn to 'that whole jumble of ambiguity.' Whether the series critiques the male gaze or repeats it has been argued by feminist critics for decades; the film theorist Laura Mulvey read it as parody that turns nostalgia into unease, while the painter and critic Mira Schor saw it as objectification all the same.

How to know which #52 you are looking at

Film Still #52 exists in two sizes. The familiar one is a gelatin silver print with an image of about 6 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches on an 8 by 10 inch sheet, the size of a studio glossy. The impression sold in New York in 2024 is signed, dated 1979 and numbered 4/10 in ink on the back; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, impression is signed and inscribed 9/10 1979 in pencil on the back. Both point to an edition of ten in the small size.

A larger version also exists: an edition of three, with an image about 25 5/8 by 37 1/4 inches (65 by 94.5 cm), mounted on board, with Sherman's signature, date and edition number on a label on the reverse. Number 3/3 of that edition sold at auction in October 2016.

The surest check is the inscription on the back and the paper trail. Impressions that have appeared publicly trace back to Sherman's New York gallery: the 4/10 impression was bought there in 1983, and the large 3/3 impression passed through the same gallery and a gallery in Cologne before its owner acquired it in 1990. The Broad's impression was accessioned in November 1982, only three years after the picture was made.

From fifty dollars to the museum wall

In December 1995 the Museum of Modern Art bought the complete set, then counted as 69 photographs, so the series could be kept whole in one public collection. Sherman later added one more image, which is why the series is now described as 70. Its #52 is catalogued as object 862.1995. When MoMA first showed the set, from June 26 to September 2, 1997, it was only the second time the series had been exhibited in its entirety, and the show was sponsored by Madonna.

Other impressions of #52 went to The Broad's collection in Los Angeles, where it was accessioned in 1982, and to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which bought its impression in 2001.

On the market, the large 3/3 version sold at auction in October 2016 for 245,000 pounds with fees, against an estimate of 250,000 to 350,000 pounds. In November 2014 a group of 21 different Film Stills assembled by a Toronto collector sold together for $6,773,000 at auction in New York; #52 was not among them. On May 16, 2024, the small 4/10 impression of #52 sold at auction in New York for $125,000 with fees, against an estimate of $120,000 to $180,000. It was the top lot of that sale.

The numbers

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

Standard: image about 6 1/2 x 9 7/16 in. (16.5 x 24 cm) on an 8 x 10 in. sheet. Large: image 25 5/8 x 37 1/4 in. (65 x 94.5 cm), sheet 28 x 38 1/4 in. (71 x 97 cm)

Editions

Standard size in an edition of 10 (impressions numbered 4/10 and 9/10 are recorded); large size in an edition of 3

Catalogue raisonne

None stated; reproduced in The Complete Untitled Film Stills (MoMA, 2003), p. 69

Public collections

Museum of Modern Art, New York (862.1995); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2001.206); The Broad, Los Angeles (F-SHER-1F97.45)

Timeline

1. 1954

   Cindy Sherman is born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

2. 1972

   Sherman enrolls in the visual arts department at Buffalo State, majoring in painting.

3. 1974

   With Robert Longo, Charles Clough and Nancy Dwyer, she founds the Hallwalls arts space in Buffalo.

4. 1976

   Sherman graduates with a BA.

5. 1977

   She moves to New York in the summer and begins the Untitled Film Stills.

6. 1979

   Untitled Film Still #52 is made: a blonde woman in a negligee on a bed, looking off-camera.

7. 1981

   The Untitled Film Stills are shown in their entirety for the first time, at a Manhattan gallery.

8. Nov 10, 1982

   An impression of #52 is accessioned into the collection now at The Broad, Los Angeles.

9. 1983

   The 4/10 impression later sold in 2024 is acquired from Sherman's New York gallery.

10. 1990

    The large-format 3/3 impression is acquired by the owner who sold it in 2016.

11. Dec 1995

    The Museum of Modern Art buys the complete set of Film Stills, then 69 photographs.

12. Jun 26, 1997

    MoMA opens Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, sponsored by Madonna; it runs to September 2.

13. 2001

    The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, buys its impression of #52, numbered 9/10.

14. Feb 26, 2012

    MoMA opens its Cindy Sherman retrospective (through June 11, 2012), with its impression of #52 on view.

15. Nov 2014

    A group of 21 Film Stills, not including #52, sells together for $6,773,000 at auction in New York.

16. Oct 6, 2016

    The large 3/3 impression of #52 sells at auction for 245,000 pounds.

17. May 16, 2024

    The 4/10 impression sells at auction in New York for $125,000 with fees, the top lot of the sale.

The world in 1979

• Jan 1, 1979

  The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full diplomatic relations.

• Mar 29, 1979

  The Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania becomes the most serious nuclear power plant accident in US history.

• Apr 9, 1979

  The Deer Hunter wins best picture at the 51st Academy Awards.

• Jul 15, 1979

  President Carter gives his 'crisis of confidence' address, later known as the malaise speech.

• Sep 16, 1979

  The Sugarhill Gang releases 'Rapper's Delight,' the first rap single to reach the Billboard Top 40.

• Nov 4, 1979

  Iranian students seize the US Embassy in Tehran, beginning the Iran hostage crisis.

• Dec 6, 1979

  Star Trek: The Motion Picture has its world premiere in Washington, D.C.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Untitled Film Still #52 is number 41 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (38 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Sherman first priced the Film Stills at fifty dollars each, wanting them to look like something 'you'd find in a novelty store and buy for a quarter.'
• The numbers are not Sherman's titles. Her gallery assigned them to keep track of the pictures, and she left the works untitled to keep them ambiguous.
• MoMA's 1997 showing of the complete Film Stills was sponsored by Madonna.
• MoMA bought the series as 69 pictures in 1995; Sherman later added a 70th.
• The Broad's impression of #52 entered its collection in 1982, just three years after Sherman made it.
• Sherman studied stills, not films: her research was cheap movie books that friends brought home from a bookstore job.