Cindy Sherman first won artistic recognition for her Untitled Film Stills (1977-80)—a series of 69 enigmatic black-and-white self-portraits emulating movie publicity shots from the 1940s and 50s. Over the last 30 years she has risen to become the most widely known and financially successful art photographer in the United States. Her latest photographs are large color prints of masks and dolls, as well as detailed arrangements of dummies, body parts and other inanimate objects. Source

The Untitled Film Stills were a group of 69 pictures taken between 1977 and 1980. In the series, Sherman portrays stereotyped female roles in B-movies of the 1950's. The Centerfold or Horizontals series began when the publication ArtForum commissioned Cindy Sherman to create a portfolio of images for display in the magazine. The Fashion series first began in 1983 when Interview Magazine commissioned Sherman to create a portfolio of fashion images for the magazine. The 1986-1989 Disasters series shows Sherman commenting on the chaos and disorder of the world around us. In the series, Sherman uses the body as a metaphor for society.

I have yet to see her film 1998 film debut, Office Killer, but it looks interesting and like the type of film you either love or viciously hate.

"These are pictures of emotions personified, entirely of themselves with their own presence - not of me. When I prepare each character I have to consider what I'm working against; that people are going to look under the make-up and wigs for that common denominator, the recognizable. I'm trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me."

--Cindy Sherman, 'Untitled' Statement

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Also, check out this greatness - especially the Radiohead video:
http://www.lowmorale.co.uk/

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v1.0 [2005-11-02]
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Remedios Varo was born in Spain in 1908. Remedios always struggled to combine the mythic with the scientific, the sacred with the profane. She went into a convent for an art school in Madrid. After this, she decided to evade the civil war that was going on in Spain and emigrate to Paris where the art movements were in vogue. She was forced into exile from Paris when the Nazi occupied France and moved to Mexico City at the end of 1941. She initially considered Mexico a temporary haven, but would remain in Latin America for the rest of her life.

In Europe she was influenced by the surrealist movement and the metaphysics studies. She was motivated by ancient studies and literature, but also by physics, mathematics, engineering, biology and psychoanalisis. With a friend she met in Europe she decided to move to Mexico. In Mexico her real journey as an artist started. Once in Mexico, Varo decided to realize one of the most beautiful travels... the one to her imagination. She has a collection of approximately 140 art works. Of which 110 were produced at Mexico City.

Her characters are mystical and solitary; most of the times involved in scientifical activities. They often have almond-shaped eyes, and androgynous features of Varo's self portraits. Remedios was influenced mainly by her father who encouraged her to develop the ability of drafting. She went to one of the most recognized art schools worldwide, the San Fernando Academy in Spain. There she met Salvador Dalí and followed his skills. She uses lots of symbolism and hidden animals, mainly cats, in her paintings.

Diverse characters emerge in her painting with unusual attitudes: contemplative, passive, highly symbolic; reflection of the instability which can be overcome or changed. All of them are part of a unique world which involves developed concepts of magic and imagination. Remedios also used vehicles (father influence) in most of her paintings. These are utopian vehicles of cosmic propulsion travelling through land, air and sea, with gears, sails and transmissions that respond to superior energy sources. In the fall of 1963 she died by excessive tension:

Excessive tension on these (eyeball) muscles, called the Rectus muscles, creates a condition of farsightedness, and is experienced emotionally as tension in the consciousness, as coming out of one's Self, focusing on Image. It may be experienced as suppressed anger, or anger at one's self (guilt), or a feeling that in some way, the individual is not as important as other Beings. Source

Was this what killed her?

Some of my favorite works of Varo:

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Remedios Varo, 1908-1963
Unexpected Journeys

I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for Ted Hughes. After years of demonizing him and romanticizing Sylvia Plath, I'm finally starting to de-mythologize them a little. One thing is for sure and that's Ted Hughes loved crazy women! Maybe it had to do with his own inability to express himself, being highly reserved; he was attracted to his emotional corollary. The woman he left Sylvia for was named Assia Wevil.

Assia Wevill was herself an aspiring poet. She began her affair with Hughes after 1961 when he and Plath took up residence in Devon, which continued after Plath committed suicide.

Hughes moved her into Court Green (Mid Devon home that he had bought for Plath). Wevill was haunted by Plath's ghost –even though she attempted to take over Sylvia's place (she even began using things that had once belonged to the poetess). She was anxious that Hughes would leave her and the daughter she bore him on March 3, 1965, Alexandra Tatiana Eloise, nicknamed "Shura."

On March 25, 1969, Assia Wevill took her own life and that of their daughter in a manner that nearly re-enacted Plath's suicide. Dragging a mattress into the kitchen, Assia sealed the door and window, dissolved sleeping pills in a glass of water and gave them to Shura. Taking the rest of the pills, she turned on the gas stove, and lay down on the mattress with her daughter.

In the 2003 film Sylvia, she is played by 1961 when he and Plath took up residence in Devon, which continued after Plath committed suicide.

On March 25, 1969, Assia Wevill took her own life and that of their daughter in a manner that nearly re-enacted Plath's suicide. Dragging a mattress into the kitchen, Assia sealed the door and window, dissolved sleeping pills in a glass of water and gave them to Shura. Taking the rest of the pills, she turned on the gas stove, and lay down on the mattress with her daughter. Source

Ted Hughes' poem "Folktale" deals with his relation to Assia:

She wanted the silent heraldry

Of the purple beach by the noble wall.

He wanted Cabala the ghetto demon

With its polythene bag full of ashes.

The Bell Jar has been called the female The Catcher in the Rye. I have to agree. The Bell Jar along with The Colossus, her first book of poems, are incredible. Also, check out the movie Sylvia with Gwyneth Paltrow - I give it a 7.5 our of 10 rating.

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"