Cindy Sherman

chromogenic print, flush-mounted, framed, signed, dated, and editioned '1/6' in ink, Metro Pictures and The Ames Collection, New York, labels on the reverse, 2004

Metro Pictures, New York, 2004

New York, Metro Pictures, Cindy Sherman, May - June 2004

Eva Respini, Cindy Sherman (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2012), pl. 144

Cindy Sherman: Clowns (Munich, 2012), unpaginated

Paul Moorhouse, Cindy Sherman (London, 2014), p. 136

While this print has not been examined out of its frame, it appears to be in generally excellent condition. The colors remain vibrant and saturated with no apparent fading.
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In 2003, in the wake of the national trauma of September 11, Cindy Sherman embarked on a new and bold series.  Clowns, Sherman’s first series since 2001, consisted of 18 self-portraits.  In each photograph, Sherman transformed herself into a different clown, attempting to embody a host of collective American phobias in the years following the disaster.  Inspired by circus posters, Sherman disguised herself with heavily painted facial features and vintage clothes. As she explained in a 2004 interview, her ‘pictures are supposed to look as if they were simply cut out of an advertisement for circus, with a stiff and artificial pose to sell the idea of the funny clown although [her] clowns are anything but funny’ (Cindy Sherman,  quoted in 'No Make-Up. An Interview with Cindy Sherman, by Isabelle Graw,' Cindy Sherman: Clowns, p. 55). 

In these sinister and arresting portraits, Sherman exaggerates the contemporary popular depiction of the menacing clown, with a painted face that obscures a true, malicious intent or dark emotion.  In Untitled #145, she does so with three subtle references: the face paint, similar to that of Batman’s supervillain The Joker; a bowler hat and straitjacket-like belt, reminiscent of those worn by the ultra-violent gang in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange; and the nearly black background, an anomaly for this series in which she usually posed in front of a psychedelic backdrops.  The present clown holds not a lighthearted balloon animal, but rather an unidentified pink drink which looks more like Pepto-Bismol or poison than soda fit for children.  As she did in her earlier series (such as Headshots, Lots 17 and 45), Sherman remains just visible enough underneath her makeup and clothes, reminding us that outward expression and inner psychology are not so distant from each other.

This series was first exhibited at Metro Pictures Gallery in New York in 2004 and quickly became one of her most iconic.  At the time of this writing, no other print of this image is believed to have been offered at auction.