Sherman began her bravura series of art-historical impersonations at a time when wall-hogging canvases by Neo-Expressionist painters (mostly male) fetched princely sums compared to the work of women artists working in supposedly lesser mediums such as photography and video. The artist began the series, which became popularly known as her “History Portraits,” in New York, but made this rendering of a dissolute monk while on a two month fellowship in Rome, where she raided the outdoor flea markets for the costumes that inspired her characterizations.
