A massive Cindy Sherman retrospective is taking place at the National Portrait Gallery next summer

For the best part of forty years now, American photographer Cindy Sherman has been engaged in an ever-evolving, ever-disquieting, experiment into the mutable nature of identity itself.

Next summer, British gallery-goers will be able to wrap their heads around Cindy’s first ever UK retrospective, with a 180 photo strong blockbuster set to open at the National Portrait Gallery in late June.

Featuring a first-ever UK display of images from her groundbreaking series, Untitled Film Stills, 1977-80as well as work from throughout her long and storied career, viewers can expect to see Cindy adopting all manner of guises.

The show’s curator Paul Moorhouse says, “Cindy Sherman’s art is completely distinctive. By inventing fictitious characters and photographing herself in imaginary situations, she inhabits a world of pure appearance. No other artist interrogates the illusions presented by modern culture in such a penetrating way – or scrutinises so tellingly the façades that people adopt. Probing the elusive connection between appearance and meaning, her work explores contemporary life – and with sharp observation exposes its deceptions.”

One of the most significant photographic figures of the late 21st century, Cindy Sherman is an image maker worth obsessing over, and the NPG’s director Dr Nicholas Cullinan envisages that this forthcoming retrospective will, “place her art within the context of portraiture, exploring the often complex and ambiguous relationship between appearance and reality.”

Cindy Sherman will run 27 June – 15 September 2019 at the National Portrait Gallery, London