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The Woodman Family Foundation was established by Betty Woodman (1930-2018) and George Woodman (1932-2017) during their lifetimes. Love of beauty was at the heart of their lives and art. In this spirit, the Foundation is dedicated to stewarding the artistic legacies of Betty, George, and their daughter, Francesca Woodman (1958-1981).

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The Woodmans, Nancy Graves and Richard Serra in Italy: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
The Woodmans, Nancy Graves and Richard Serra in Italy: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Over the course of a year from 1965-66, the Woodman family lived and worked in Italy, just outside of Florence. During that time, Betty and George became close friends with the artists and then-couple Nancy Graves and Richard Serra, who, like Betty, was there for the year on a Fulbright-Hays scholarship. They spent many hours together around the table, sharing meals, funny hats and conversations about art.
Betty Woodman's glazes, paints, and brushes: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Betty Woodman's glazes, paints, and brushes: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Betty Woodman’s numerous glazes, paints, and the varied configurations of brushes—sometimes mixed or assembled by the artist herself to achieve desired color swatches, brushy marks, and parallel stripes—reflect her continuously innovative work with ceramic forms.
Across oceans and borders, a customs declaration became a promise: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Across oceans and borders, a customs declaration became a promise: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Around 1952, a young George Woodman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, penned his devotion on a USPS customs form: “Little box with littler box inside” and “1 engagement ring of Navajo silver with turquoises.” The precious 4-ounce package was destined for the hands of Elizabeth Abrahams (later to be known as Betty Woodman) across the ocean in Fiesole, Italy, where she had been living and working for the past year.
A glimpse into George Woodman's slide collection: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
A glimpse into George Woodman's slide collection: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Our archival intern Erin Moss, who is in her second year at the Pratt School of Information earning her MLIS, has been processing George Woodman's extensive slide collection this semester. The slide collection consists of thousands of 35mm or medium format slides from the 1950s through the early 2000s documenting both George's work and personal life. Erin has been struck by the experience of discovering an artist through their own archival materials.
Betty Woodman at The ADAA Art Show
Betty Woodman at The ADAA Art Show
This solo presentation of wall-based works by Woodman focuses on the culminating phase of her 60-year career. The paintings on view--on canvas, ceramic, and paper--illuminate the artist's daring approach to materials and radical explorations of two- and three-dimensional form.
Francesca Woodman. "Untitled," 1976, Providence, Rhode Island
Francesca Woodman. "Untitled," 1976, Providence, Rhode Island
As the child of artists, Francesca Woodman grew up on the periphery of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where her father, George Woodman, taught painting and the philosophy of art. Well-versed as she was from a young age in art history and contemporary art, Francesca was famously precocious in asserting her own ideas. In this series of photographs, which she gifted to her father, she humorously and good-naturedly carves out her own position as an artist, bursting through a poster for his 1976 lecture on minimalist heavy-weight Sol LeWitt, replacing it with a poster for her own exhibition at the Addison Gallery, and then herself.
Ephemera used in George Woodman's photographs: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Ephemera used in George Woodman's photographs: FROM THE ARCHIVES...
"…[T]hings have a life, greater or smaller, in the eye and the mind. This life unfolds, no limits can be set upon it, and the way it happens may be similar or very dissimilar from one person to another,” George Woodman wrote of objects generally, when considering those housed in museum collections, but these observations illuminate his own approach to still life and photography. The Woodman Family Foundation Archives include an eclectic array of found objects, toys and fabrics used by Woodman in his photographs.
OPENING Thursday October 5th: Francesca Woodman in "RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology," Barbican Centre, London, October 5, 2023-January 14, 2024
OPENING Thursday October 5th: Francesca Woodman in "RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology," Barbican Centre, London, October 5, 2023-January 14, 2024
RE/SISTERS reflects on a range of themes related to eco-feminism, unpacking alternate relationships to the natural world which often resist the logic of capitalism, as well as environmental and gender justice. Fifteen photographs by Woodman—many of which have rarely or never before been seen—explore the figure in relation to the landscape.
THIS THURSDAY "Italian Connections: Ella Walker and Betty Woodman," September 28, 6-7pm, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH
THIS THURSDAY "Italian Connections: Ella Walker and Betty Woodman," September 28, 6-7pm, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH
Join us this THURSDAY for Italian Inspirations - a free program celebrating the ongoing exhibition, “Distant Conversations: Ella Walker and Betty Woodman,” on view now through October 22. Katarina Jerinic, Collections Curator at The Woodman Family Foundation, will offer deeper insight into how Betty Woodman’s time in Italy influenced her singular approach to ceramic sculpture, paired with a presentation from the Currier’s Chief Curator Lorenzo Fusi highlighting the influence of Italian fresco on Ella Walker’s work.
Francesca Woodman included in Henri Cartier-Bresson Foudation RATP campaign, Hôtel de Ville station, Paris, France, 2023
Francesca Woodman included in Henri Cartier-Bresson Foudation RATP campaign, Hôtel de Ville station, Paris, France, 2023
The Henri-Cartier Bresson Foundation celebrates its 20th anniversary with a campaign of posters in various Paris metro stations highlighting the 70 exhibitions presented since its inception. An image from Francesca Woodman’s 2016 exhibition is currently on view in the Hôtel de Ville station. 
NOW OPEN Francesca Woodman in "The Rose," Lumber Room, Portland, OR, July 29-October 28, 2023
NOW OPEN Francesca Woodman in "The Rose," Lumber Room, Portland, OR, July 29-October 28, 2023
Curated by Justine Kurland, this exhibition brings together 44 artists whose works resonate with Jay DeFeo’s cumulative use of materials, including Wangechi Mutu, Hannah Wilke, Moyra Davey, K8 Hardy, Joiri Minaya, Lee Bontecou, and Ruth Asawa, among others. Conceived by Kurland as an homage to DeFeo’s monumental sculptural painting “The Rose” (1958-66), the assembled works on view together from an exhibition as collage.
Betty Woodman interview with Selva Barni, "Purple Magazine," Fall/Winter, 2017: READING ROOM
Betty Woodman interview with Selva Barni, "Purple Magazine," Fall/Winter, 2017: READING ROOM
READING ROOM highlights past essays, reviews and interviews about Betty Woodman, Francesca Woodman, and George Woodman that provided new insights and lenses through which to understand their work. In this interview with Selva Barni, published in "Purple Magazine" in 2017, Betty Woodman talks about taking chances in her work and life, her relationship to feminism, her shift from potter to sculptor, and much more.