Backstories

"Blueprint for a Temple (II)," one of the largest and most ambitious of Francesca Woodman’s works, is on view for the first time in 44 years at Gagosian Gallery.

"Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In" offers fresh perspectives on the work of two of the most influential women in the history of photography who lived and worked nearly a century apart.

Gagosian’s inaugural exhibition of works by Francesca Woodman presents key prints made by the artist from approximately 1975 through 1980. The photographs on view represent a culmination of Woodman’s exploration of the figure in space and prompt a reconsideration of how she drew on classical sculpture and architecture throughout her career.

Last chance to see this unique exhibition, the first two-person presentation of Betty Woodman’s and George Woodman’s work in the UK. Focused on the couple's prolific time at their farmhouse in Antella, Italy—where they lived and worked for part of each year for nearly fifty years—the exhibition explores the artists’ mutual influences and their shared life immersed in art, culture, travel and experimentation, reflected in kindred palettes and patterns. Catch a glimpse of their Italian studios and home and hear them speak about the importance of Italy to their work in this exhibition video, assembled from interviews in the Woodman Family Foundation archives.

Fragmented frescos glimpsed in Italian churches and Roman ruins, geometry noticed in Cosmati floor mosaics, and patterns seen on tile walls in Spain, Turkey, Morocco, Mexico and Portugal provided decades-worth of ideas for both artists, realized on the floor and on the wall.

In the 1980s, George Woodman’s rigorous pattern paintings based in geometric abstraction began to incorporate more representational motifs, including figures, flowers and architectural details. This resulted in a complex layering of forms and colors into foreground and background.

‍The exhibition at Charleston explores ways that Betty Woodman’s and George Woodman’s shared life and experiences over more than six decades found expression in the works that emerged from each artists’ studio. Art history significantly influenced them both, as can be seen in many of the works on view at Charleston as well as numerous other works in the Foundation’s collection, as shown here.

This exhibition at Charleston—the home and studio of artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant—centers on Betty and George Woodman’s prolific time in Antella, Italy, where they lived and worked together for part each year for nearly 50 years. In addition to presenting a range of artworks exploring the couple’s mutual influences and their ongoing dialogue in a variety of media, the exhibition includes archival photographs documenting their home, life and work in Antella.

Representing a decades-long dialogue in ceramics and paint, “Betty Woodman and George Woodman” brings together the artists’ vibrant ceramics, vivid abstract paintings, radical assemblages, and photographs, illuminated by archival materials. Focused on the couple’s prolific time at their farmhouse in Antella, Italy—where they lived and worked for part of each year for nearly fifty years—the exhibition explores the artists’ mutual influences and their shared life immersed in art, culture, travel and experimentation, reflected in kindred palettes and patterns.

“Betty Woodman and George Woodman” is the first UK exhibition to show both artists' work together, celebrating the work of ground-breaking American ceramic artist Betty Woodman and the painter and photographer George Woodman.

Of this group of works from the 1990s, many not seen for decades, Johanna Fateman wrote in her recent review in The New Yorker: “As with everything on view in this wonderful show, the installation is so gestural and so fluid that it’s easy to forget that the ecstatic whole is composed of brittle parts.”

‍The Balustrade Relief Vases, which Betty Woodman began making in the 1990s, were a turning point in her work, in which she fully embraced the space and concerns of painting, through sculptural materials.