The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver) presentS Francesca Woodman: Portrait of a Reputation, on view from September 20, 2019 until April 5, 2020. The exhibition presents an early episode in the artistic life of American artist Francesca Woodman (1958-81). Featuring over 40 unique vintage prints, as well as notes, letters, postcards, and other ephemera related to the artist’s burgeoning career, this exhibition 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 R.I.S.D.
“This exhibition offers a humanizing portrayal of this enigmatic artist and her singular approach to photography,” said Nora Burnett Abrams, Mark G. Falcone Director of MCA Denver and curator of the exhibition. “It demonstrates her 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.
This exhibition is organized by Nora Burnett Abrams, Mark G. Falcone Director of MCA Denver and is supported in part by The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
The accompanying publication, co-published with Rizzoli, will include essays by Abrams and Drew Sawyer, curator of photographs at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
