Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) was born to a family of artists in Denver, Colorado. She discovered a passion for black and white photography at the young age of 13. Woodman spent a year in Rome under scholarship from the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated from a public high school in Boulder, Colorado. After moving to New York City to become a photo artist, she became an artist-in-residence in the MacDowell Artist Colony in New Hampshire. She died jumping out of a loft window on January 19th, 1981 at the age of 22 after struggling with depression and a rocky relationship.
Woodman usually depicted herself or doppelganger figures as the subject but they would not be considered portraits in a traditional sense. She experimented with setting, using dark, empty and decrepit rooms and exposure times, both of which she mastered in her short years. Art historically, she was inspired by the Baroque, Surrealism, Classicism and Futurism.
Her work is celebrated post-humously being critiqued as haunting, sexual, vulnerable and slightly disturbing. The only show held during her lifetime was at the Maldoror Bookstore from 1977-78 in Rome during her aforementioned stint in the Rhode Island School of Design's honor program. Some Disordered Interior Geometries was the only written work published during her lifetime. The Fancy was an experimental film is 2000 about Woodman's life and work. She has had several successful posthumous exhibitions.
Her work generally evokes curiosity within the viewer and is incredibly interesting compositionally. Clearly, she had a sexually attractive figure and frequently used nudity as part of her progression. However, it is not interpreted (by myself) as aesthetically pleasing but instead disturbing and violating much like the nudes portrayed by Egon Schiele.
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