"On the occasion of the upcoming Cindy Sherman retrospective exhibition in the New York Museum of Modern Art in 2012, we are pleased to present one of her most fanciful photographic series, Clowns. Having astonished the art world with her "role portraits" for almost 40 years--her History Portraits and Untitled Film Stills are milestones of conceptual portraiture--she explores the horror of laughter and the laughable in Clowns. Sherman said: "I came to clowns to show the complex emotional abysses of a painted smile." This volume presents the entire series of eighteen color photographs created between 2003 and 2004, which justify her reputation as one of the most outstanding and influential artists of our time."