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.

"Colorado was like Italy: a very good place to make art, but not a very good place to be an artist. So we moved. We were 50 years old at the time, and we thought rather than be comfortable in Colorado we should try to be artists living in New York. This is when we were not timid, again. Charlie and Francesca had finished school and moved out, so we sold his [George] studio in Colorado to buy a place in New York. Francesca, who was living there at the time, went and looked at real estate and came up with this loft, which we ended up buying. It was easier for me, somehow, because I joined Max Protetch Gallery. It was an art, not clay, gallery, and Max thought he would like to be the first to deal with pottery. I might have been called for the wrong reasons, but I stayed there for 25 years, and that was the right way to present my work: in the context of other art. Max’s gallery was on 57th Street, then moved to Broadway in SoHo and then to Chelsea. He [Protetch] was very successful at selling my work. He also liked that the decorative arts collectors came to his gallery. New York also meant that we started to have conversations with other artists. I started to have a dialogue with other women artists. For the first time, I knew women who were serious, dedicated artists.”

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.

To read the entire interview, click here.

Selva Barni. “Betty Woodman: New York/Florence.” Purple Magazine, Fall/Winter, 2017.

‍

Click on the image above for a complete gallery view and details.