Untitled by Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman

ca. 1979

Gelatin silver print

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

The sensitive and intensely personal self-portraits Francesca Woodman (Born 1958 in Denver; died 1981 in New York) made during her brief life provide a unique and complex meditation on female subjectivity. Despite her youth, the prolific photographer’s striking oeuvre shows an artist simultaneously engaging and defining the politics of her time. In sparse yet lush images, Woodman used own body to construct ambiguous portraits set in austere interior environments. The decaying architecture of Woodman’s studio, which served as background in many of her works, lends her photographs an air of isolation and experimentation. Subject to th