From the Archives

In 1984, following a series of exhibitions at PS1 dedicated to “Art Couples,” art historian and critic Donald Kuspit organized "1 + 1 = 2" at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Manhattan. The exhibition paired the work of 31 artist couples and acknowledged a long-overdue cultural shift in recognizing women artists as peers to their male counterparts. Betty Woodman and George Woodman—included in the exhibition and married for more than thirty years at that point—often credited their mutual respect for and support of each other as artists as the bedrock of their marriage.

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.

“Presenting Food,” 1985, marked Betty Woodman’s second project with the Fabric Workshop and Museum and a farewell to her work as a functional potter. For this dinner-performance event, held at the museum’s New York City gallery space, Woodman responded to chef Daniel Mattroce’s menu with her signature ceramic dinnerware and serving dishes, accompanied by fabrics she designed and printed at FWM’s Philadelphia studios. Woodman later recounted: “These are my last functional pieces, ‘presented’ like the food in an almost operatic finale.”

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.

George Woodman’s landscape paintings from the early 1960s were influenced by modernists from Cézanne to Diebenkorn and profoundly impacted by his year-long stay in Italy. “The landscape in Italy is not the same. Italy is not a natural object. The earth is shaped. The hillsides are terraced…I painted many more Italian landscapes in Boulder than I ever did in Italy."

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.

George Woodman and Betty Woodman began their nearly seven decade relationship in life and art in 1950. While Betty was on a year-long solo trip to Fiesole, Italy from 1951-52, the two regularly exchanged passionate love letters and affectionate notes.

Betty Abrahams Woodman was raised with her sister in Newton, Massachusetts by their “liberal, anti-religious and culturally ambitious” parents who fostered in their daughters the importance of responsibility and self-determination. This New Year’s card from the late 40s - early 50s reveals a young Betty with her family.

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.

After acquiring a loft in New York City in 1980, Betty and George began to split their time between homes and studios in Manhattan, Boulder, Colorado and Antella, Italy—a way of living that became vital to their work. A 1984 feature on the couple in the magazine Metropolis chronicles their dynamic lives, relationship and art.

A former wine cellar underneath the family's stone farmhouse in Antella, Italy was transformed in to a new photography and painting studio for George Woodman, with surrounding views of the Tuscan countryside.

Betty Woodman’s Chinese Pleasure (2007-2008) was commissioned by the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies Program for the United States Embassy in Beijing. Woodman was inspired by and freely borrowed from visual influences all over the world and throughout art history, here incorporating three distinct moments in the history of Chinese art, ranging from Sichuan bronzes to popular culture into this dramatic installation.