The following photographs come from the collection of the photographer George Lange – a classmate and close friend of Francesca Woodman’s during her time at RISD (The Rhode Island School of Design).
As documented in Lange’s own pictures of Woodman, when Woodman (never the neatest student) left RISD her studio was littered with prints that she invited Lange to take as many of as he wanted. It was clear to people at RISD that Woodman was someone special and that as an artist she existed on her own plane so Lange filled a box with the prints that spoke to him as well as prints that Woodman had given him or sent him through the mail and put them away.
Woodman died in 1981 — soon to be recognized as one of the most important photographers of her generation — but Lange kept the box closed out of respect for her memory and affection for his friend. It was not until 2017 when Lange was living in Boulder, Colorado that he showed the work to Nora Burnett Abrams, Director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, who quickly made plans to mount an exhibition. Rizzoli publishers joined the project to produce a book, “Portrait of a Reputation”, which included a number of Lange’s own student pictures of Francesca and helped paint a more nuanced and joyful picture of Woodman than the doomed artist she had generally been portrayed as. The exhibition went on to draw great acclaim and the book quickly sold out.
After getting the book in 2019, I called George (who I had known for many years) to congratulate him on the book and show which led to a conversation about how the work might finally be sold and we agreed on a plan to exhibit the work at Paris Photo where it would be seen in person by the truest concentration of photography lovers and connoisseurs. The presentation is now scheduled for this November.
A note about the prints and photographs: In a career that essentially spanned a scant five years, Woodman’s RISD work is the bedrock of her oeuvre. It was during this time that Woodman developed fully all her ideas and themes – self-portraiture, performance, a feminist freedom to picture her own body, and an unshakeable belief in the importance of art and being an artist. If the images are not all perfectly placed on the photographic paper or if the edges of the paper are fogged on a few prints that is because the prints are so close to the act of creation they emit what I feel can only be described as a “pre-vintage” quality.
Over the last two decades, Woodman’s prices have soared with the auction prices for the top 10 vintage prints going from $86,500 up to $200,000. The prices attached have been vetted and informed by appraisers, experts, and auction records.