Francesca Woodman

The Woodman family’s lifelong love of Italy began in 1951 with Betty’s yearlong apprenticeship in Fiesole. After marrying in 1953, Betty and George took their young children, Charles and Francesca, for extended stays in 1959-60 and again in 1965-66.

The Addison has a long and important history with Francesca Woodman. It was the first institution to collect her work, purchasing six of her photographs in 1976. She had her first solo exhibition there that same year, including works she made while studying at Rhode Island School of Design.

Francesca Woodman’s graduate exhibition as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design was held at the school’s Woods-Gerry Gallery in November 1978. She considered it a “swan song” to her time there as shown in her photocopied invitation. She reported on the opening in a letter to her friend Edith Schloss: “you would have enjoyed it i bought all these bird whistles that one fills with water and they warble in n.y. do you remember them from when you used to live there? anyway the room was very echoey with these things and i actually enjoyed the opening.”

In May of 1979, George Woodman received this review from “The Village Voice” in the mail, clipped and sent to him by his daughter Francesca. It was addressed in her hand “For Daddy,” and pointed out where his work is discussed.

Francesca Woodman was born on this day in 1958. Her artist parents used this drawing by George, recently discovered in the family archive, to share the good news with family and friends.

PLOTLINE 5 considers the performative aspects of Francesca Woodman’s practice. In her photographs and videos, Woodman claimed the female body as subject by using her own - staging and sequencing its movements, capturing it in motion. The bodily, temporal, and spatial concerns in Woodman’s work align her with the feminist performance art of her time. Woodman’s photographs reveal traces of her carefully constructed performative process.

Katy Hessel of The Great Women Artists Podcast interviews Katarina Jerinic, the Woodman Family Foundation’s Collections Curator, on Francesca Woodman’s work and life. The two discuss photographs made in Providence, Italy and New York and Jerinic shares some of Woodman’s own words and ideas found in the Foundation's archives.

Francesca Woodman's love of dessert was well-known to her family and friends, often coming up in letters or conversations, and even in two paintings she made in the late 1970s.

LAST CHANCE to see Francesca Woodman in "The Body Electric" at the National Gallery of Australia!

Francesca Woodman often used the backs of her photographs to write letters to family and friends, addressing, stamping and dropping her prints directly into the mailbox. In this exchange between her and George from April 1977, they discuss her first forays into fashion photography and other news from Providence and Boulder.

LAST CHANCE to see Francesca Woodman: New York Works in Venice this week! On view through Saturday, December 12, 2020 at Victoria Miro Venice.

From 1972-1973, Francesca Woodman studied at Abbot Academy, one of the few high schools in the US at the time to offer a concentrated art program. It was there that Francesca met Wendy Snyder MacNeil, her earliest, highly influential teacher who introduced her to the creative and expressive capabilities of photography.