Sherman made this image in the wake of an astonishingly productive five-year run that yielded both her groundbreaking Untitled Film Stills (1977-80)-faked scenes from imaginary movies in which she was actress, director, and cinematographer-and her controversial follow-up series Centerfolds (1981), which was commissioned, and then rejected, by Artforum magazine. Perhaps the increased visibility and public exposure of an artist who specialized in disappearing occasioned this "self-portrait" as Marilyn Monroe out of her sex kitten costume, as Norma Jean Baker.
