Cindy Sherman’s Untitled (#99) comes from the artist’s “Pink Robes” series of four photographs, each featuring the artist adorned in a pink chenille bathrobe. This 1982 series was only the second in the artist’s oeuvre in which the artist employs color. After completing her famous “Film Stills” in the late 70s, Sherman first turned to color in 1980 with her “Horizontal” photographs, in which the images were taken from odd angles and displayed in a wide, large-scale format. The “Pink Robes”, in contrast, are vertically oriented, harkening back to traditional portraiture, yet reimagined in Sherman’s characteristic contemporary interpretation. In each of the four Pink Robe photographs, completed in editions of ten, Sherman highlights vulnerability, evoking notions of female silencing and the gender roles of 20th century women. In the year these works were created, Sherman confirmed this motivation when speaking of the pink robes; she explained that she was “not thinking about movies and generalizations as much as I used to. I think it’s more psychological now, more emotional than theatrical ... I’m not working with environment behind me, I’m concentrating on the face really, so it all comes out through expressing some kind of inner emotion.” (Cindy Sherman, quoted in “A Conversation with Cindy Sherman”, Succès du Bédac, exh. cat., Galerie Déjà Vu, Dijon, 1982, p. 20)

In the present lot, the second in the series of four, Sherman is bathed in a sea of darkness, rendered in dramatic chiaroscuro. She holds up the corner of the pink robe to her left shoulder, not wearing it, but rather covering herself in its drapery. This is unique to (#99), which feels less posed and more candid than the others in the series, where the robe is placed more carefully and without interruption from the artist’s own hand. Shadows cut not only across the pink fabric, but also across her face, turned in a slightly three-quarter view, but with a gaze that makes direct eye contact with the viewer. This direct gaze combined with the intense contrast of light and dark evokes an ironic combination of vulnerability and self-assurance. By protecting herself with the pink robe and not breaking eye contact, Sherman is asserting the feminine woman as an archetype, incapable of objectification, with the acknowledgement that this objectification permeates modern-day society. In this way, Untitled (#99) is not only a testament to the artist’s mastery of the photography medium, but also, even more importantly, to her own personal interpretation of contemporary gender roles.