Beauty Through Art
Art historian Katy Hessel traces how art has shaped, and been shaped by, our ideas of beauty across time.
1980s
Contributed by Katy Hessel
Challenging beauty ideals
In the late 1970s, the artist Cindy Sherman rose to acclaim with her series, Untitled Film Stills (1977 – 80). Made up of 70 small, black-and-white images of familiar – and, at times, disturbing – filmic characters, evocative of Alfred Hitchcock movies, the photographs show women in the typical passive characters they were cast to play, from the secretarial graduate to the perfect housewife.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #2 (1977). © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / Copyright Agency. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
In the late 1970s, the artist Cindy Sherman rose to acclaim with her series, Untitled Film Stills (1977 – 80). Made up of 70 small, black-and-white images of familiar – and, at times, disturbing – filmic characters, evocative of Alfred Hitchcock movies, the photographs show women in the typical passive characters they were cast to play, from the secretarial graduate to the perfect housewife.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #2 (1977). © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / Copyright Agency. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #153 (1985) © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / Copyright Agency. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
As the 1980s progressed, Sherman continued to disrupt and ‘reinvent the wheel’. Going against society and the art market’s idea of beauty, she switched her lens to one of repulsion and horror for her series Fairy Tales (1985 – 87) and Disasters (1985 – 91). Not only did it challenge the idea of beauty, but also those who collected and lived with her art who had to confront these images.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #153 (1985) © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / Copyright Agency. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
As the 1980s progressed, Sherman continued to disrupt and ‘reinvent the wheel’. Going against society and the art market’s idea of beauty, she switched her lens to one of repulsion and horror for her series Fairy Tales (1985 – 87) and Disasters (1985 – 91). Not only did it challenge the idea of beauty, but also those who collected and lived with her art who had to confront these images.
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