Francesca Woodman - Photographs London Wednesday, November 7, 2012 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist
    Private Collection, Europe

  • Exhibited

    Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Francesca Woodman: Providence, Roma, New York, 2 February - 27 March 2000

  • Literature

    H. Chandès, Francesca Woodman, exh. cat., Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, 1998, p. 111 there titled Roma, May 1977-August 1978 (mirrored and rotated 180°)
    Francesca Woodman: Providence, Roma, New York, exh. cat., Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 2000
    Francesca Woodman, London: Phaidon 2006, p. 161 there titled Angels, Rome, 1977-78 (mirrored and rotated 180°)

  • Catalogue Essay

    The present lot is a postcard invitation for Francesca Woodman's first solo exhibition Immagini at the Maldoror bookshop, Italy, 3-20 March 1978. Francesca Woodman decided to stick a contact print of her photographs on about thirty postcard invitations.

    From her teenage years until her untimely death aged 22, Francesca Woodman took photographs obsessively, creating a body of some 800 works. Predominantly using herself as subject, and occasionally models such as her boyfriend Benjamin, they are less portraits, more explorations or performances that reveal the intense curiosity – and precocious talent – of a young woman. Exploring how the body interacts with the space around it, the performative nature of her work has inspired posthumous comparison with feminist artists such as Claude Cahun and Hannah Wilke, but it is the comparison with Francis Bacon, made by the artist herself, that is perhaps most striking. As seen in the current lots, where soft, ethereal flesh meets hard architectural lines, Woodman captures the body in a manner that suggests both torment and freedom, violence and play: an unsettling mix made all the more poignant by her personal story.

  • Artist Biography

    Francesca Woodman

    American • 1958 - 1981

    During her brief 22 years, Francesca Woodman created an extraordinary body of work, exploring gender, selfhood and the body in relation to its surroundings. Woodman often experimented with a slow shutter speed, which slightly blurred and distorted her body as it moved throughout the exposure, creating a haunting, almost ghost-like effect. Her ethereal presence draws our attention to traditional depictions of the body, forms of portraiture and self-portraiture, illuminating the desire for self-preservation against the passing of time. 

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Angels, Rome - Postcard invitation for Immagini exhibition

1978
Gelatin silver contact print mounted to a postcard.
Image: 5.5 × 5.5 cm (2 1/8 × 2 1/8 in); postcard: 10.5 × 15 cm (4 1/8 × 5 7/8 in)
Address in ink by the photographer.

Estimate
£5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for £8,750

Photographs

8 November 2012
London