Francesca Woodman: Portrait of a Reputation at MCA Denver

Featuring over 40 unique vintage prints, as well as notes, letters, postcards, and other ephemera related to the artist’s burgeoning career, this exhibition (20 September 2019–5 April 2020) details Woodman’s creative coming-of-age primarily during the years 1975-79. 

Introducing this material for the first time, the exhibition is drawn from the personal collection of George Lange, a long-time friend and classmate of Woodman’s at Rhode Island School of Design.

Francesca Woodman: Portrait of a Reputation details how the artist came into her creative voice and her singular approach to photography at a notably young age. This exhibition demonstrates Woodman’s virtuosity in formation—the creative impulses that yielded a distinctive voice, and also a more nuanced understanding of the context in which she worked and which is featured so prominently in her photographs from this time. Ranging from portraits in her studio/apartment in college to self-portraits in the bucolic Colorado landscape in which she was raised, these works capture Woodman’s hallmark approach to art-making: enigmatic, rigorous, and poignant, all at once. The exhibition will also include select photographs of Woodman made by George Lange during this period. Taken together, Francesca Woodman: Portrait of a Reputation will offer a nuanced and in-depth study of this formative period in the development of this most adept artist.

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Image: Francesca Woodman, Untitled, c1975-78

Gelatin silver print

© The Estate of Francesca Woodman/Charles Woodman/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

Courtesy George Lange