Cindy Sherman (b. 1954, American)
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer known for her self-portraits in which she assumes a variety of personas and explores themes of identity, gender, and the construction of beauty. Her work has been exhibited widely in major museums and galleries around the world and is held in the collections of many prominent institutions.
Sherman's signature style involves her photographing herself in a range of costumes and personas, often using prosthetics and makeup to create elaborate and exaggerated characters. Her images often blur the line between reality and artifice, prompting viewers to question the nature of identity and the role of photography in shaping our perceptions of the world.
One of Sherman's most famous photo series is the "Untitled Film Stills," created between 1977 and 1980, in which she portrays a series of fictional characters inspired by the archetypes of mid-century Hollywood films. The series, which consists of 69 black-and-white photographs, has been widely exhibited and is considered one of the most significant contributions to contemporary photography.
Some of Sherman's most famous exhibitions include her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2012, which was the largest exhibition of her work to date, as well as major shows at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Sherman attended the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she earned a degree in fine arts in 1976. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors throughout her career, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995 and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1982.
Sherman's estimated fortune is difficult to determine, as she is a private individual who has not disclosed her net worth publicly. However, her work has sold for millions of dollars at auction, and she is widely considered one of the most successful contemporary artists working today.
Nan Goldin (b. 1953, American)
Nan Goldin is an American photographer known for her intimate and personal photographs, often documenting her own life and the lives of her friends in the LGBTQ+ community. Her work is characterized by its raw and honest portrayal of sexuality, addiction, and relationships.
Goldin's most famous photo series is "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency," a slideshow of hundreds of photographs set to music that she first presented in 1985. The series documents the lives of her friends in the downtown New York City art scene during the 1980s, including their struggles with drug addiction and the AIDS crisis.
Goldin's work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Modern in London. She has been the subject of several major retrospectives, including a 2018 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Goldin studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she first began experimenting with photography in the early 1970s. Her estimated fortune is not publicly known, but she has been an influential and respected figure in the art world for decades.
Andreas Gursky (b. 1955, German)
Martin Parr (b. 1952, British)
Thomas Struth (b. 1954, German)
Annie Leibovitz (b. 1949, American)
Jeff Wall (b. 1946, Canadian)
Gregory Crewdson (b. 1962, American)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948, Japanese)
Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968, German)