George Woodman: A Democracy of Parts, Paintings 1966-1978
DC Moore Gallery, New York. April 3 - May 3, 2025
Focusing on geometric abstractions from a significant period within the artist's six-decade career, this exhibition traces the development of George Woodman's singular approach to pattern. Though often associated with the Pattern and Decoration movement and similarly interested in decorative traditions from cultures around the globe, Woodman’s patterns were instead rooted in complex mathematical systems. His Minimalist and intellectually rigorous approach developed into tessellations—repeating, rotating and reflecting shapes or groups of shapes which fit together seamlessly to cover a canvas.
Color played no less significant a role than pattern in Woodman’s paintings. Beginning in the mid-1960s, he integrated an idiosyncratic and sophisticated palette with form, often to heightened experiential and visual effects not unlike his Op Art contemporaries. In his paintings, shifts in color—both subtle and dramatic—re-defined repeating shapes, adding perceptual dimensions to abstract compositions.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with an essay by Rebecca Lowery, Curator of Exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University.
Press and Publications
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Videos


In this video, Chris Kraus, the American critic and writer, talks through Francesca Woodman's artistic process.


In this video, Drew Sawyer, the Brooklyn Museum's Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator, discusses Woodman's historical references and artistic affinities among her and her peers.


In this video, Ann Gabhart, Woodman Family Foundation Board member, former Director of the Wellesley College Museum, and curator of Woodman’s first solo museum exhibition at Wellesley and Hunter Colleges in 1986, reflects on her early experiences with and impressions of Woodman’s work.


In this video, Isolde Brielmaier, Deputy Director of the New Museum and the Curator-at-Large at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, shares her thoughts on Woodman’s use of the body and the nude in her highly crafted photographs.


In this video, Kevin Moore, a New York based curator and writer, on Woodman's Victorian aesthetic, identity exploration and the artist's role in her artistic narrative.


In this video, Elisabeth Sussman, the Curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art, contextualizes Woodman's work within the framework of its era.


In this video, Sabina Mirri, Italian artist and close friend of Woodman, shares her memories and impressions of Woodman as a singular, compelling young woman and artist during her time in Rome.


In this video, Rosalind Krauss, art critic and theorist and Columbia University professor, discusses her initial responses to Woodman’s photographs when co-curating the retrospective exhibition at Hunter and Wellesley Colleges in 1986. She advocates for the formal power and intelligence of Woodman’s work, then and still today.




Backstories
Additional images and materials from George Woodman’s archive which shed light on his process and elaborate on specific works in the exhibition.



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Additional images and materials from George Woodman’s archive which shed light on his process and elaborate on specific works in the exhibition.
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Additional images and materials from George Woodman’s archive which shed light on his process and elaborate on specific works in the exhibition.












Additional images and materials from George Woodman’s archive which shed light on his process and elaborate on specific works in the exhibition.






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Additional images and materials from George Woodman’s archive which shed light on his process and elaborate on specific works in the exhibition.
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Additional images and materials from George Woodman’s archive which shed light on his process and elaborate on specific works in the exhibition.







