Cindy Sherman, National Portrait Gallery, London

On average, Instagrammers share 95 million photos and videos every day. Even more staggering is the statistic that the average millennial will take 25,700 selfies in their lifetime and that 93 million selfies are taken worldwide each day. Thanks to the iPhone, selfies have become an international twenty-first century phenomenon. But innovative contemporary artist Cindy Sherman was performing for the camera long before mobile phones even existed.

It was Untitled Film Stills that catapulted Sherman to international fame. In this seminal series of 70 black and white self-portraits taken in New York in 1977, Sherman disguises herself, with costume and heavy make-up, and role plays.

We see her adopt a number of stereotypical female identities: the 1950s Hollywood movies star, the struggling supporting actress in film noir, B movies and European art-house films, as well as the office girl, the girl on the run and the housewife.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #15, 1978, Gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 inches. Image Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

Next year, Untitled Film Stills will go on display in the UK for the first time as part of a long-overdue Cindy Sherman retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery. Paul Moorhouse, Curator of Cindy Sherman describes Sherman’s art as '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'.

Featuring around 180 works from international public and private collections, as well as new work never before displayed in a public gallery, Cindy Sherman will trace the development of Sherman's work from the mid-70s to the present day. Alongside Untitled Film Stills, will be all five images from her Cover Girl series, completed when she was a student in 1976, and important works from further celebrated series including Rear Screen Projections, Centrefolds, Fairy Tales and Sex Pictures.

Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, describes Sherman's photographs as 'more relevant and prescient than ever in an era of social media and selfies'. He continues by explaining that 'the exhibition will place her art within the context of portraiture, exploring the often complex and ambiguous relationship between appearance and reality.’