Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Portraits
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesca-woodman-10512" aria-label="More by Francesca Woodman" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Francesca Woodman</a>
ARTIST ROOMS
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
architecture
clothing and personal items
crouching
emotions, concepts and ideas
features
formal qualities
hiding
interiors
named individuals
objects
people
photographic
plant
plants and flowers
portraits
self-portraits
studio
umbrella
window
woman
Woodman, Francesca
workspaces
<p>In this black and white photograph Francesca Woodman crouches on the floor behind an overturned, open umbrella, the handle of which juts out toward the camera. The inside of the umbrella constitutes almost half of the image’s composition. Woodman wears a pale dress with a frilly, white, oversized collar. Her eyes are closed, with much of the rest of her face hidden behind the umbrella. Three of her fingers can be seen clutching the edge of the umbrella. Behind Woodman is a windowsill containing a pitcher, a potted plant and some other small objects. The window that dominates the upper left of the photograph is covered by transparent plastic. Along the right edge of the image a small wooden beam, perhaps a measuring stick, leans against the wall.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
14 March 2009 – 8 November 2009
2009-11-08
12 March 2009 – 8 November 2009
2009-11-08
2009-03-12
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh, UK)
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
2009-03-14
ARTIST ROOMS Francesca Woodman
Collection based display
11 June 2011 – 23 October 2011
2011-10-23
11 June 2011 – 23 October 2011
2011-10-23
2011-06-11
Ferens Art Gallery (Hull, UK)
http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/museumcollections
2011-06-11
ARTIST ROOMS 2011: Francesca Woodman
Loan-out
5 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
5 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
2014-04-05
Bodelwyddan Castle (Bodelwyddan, UK)
2014-04-05
ARTIST ROOMS 2014: Francesca Woodman
Loan-out
15 November 2014 – 25 February 2015
2015-02-25
15 November 2014 – 25 February 2015
2015-02-25
2014-11-15
Oriel Davies Gallery (Newtown, UK)
2014-11-15
ARTIST ROOMS 2014: Francesca Woodman
Loan-out
18 February 2016 – 12 June 2016
2016-06-12
18 February 2016 – 12 June 2016
2016-06-12
2016-02-18
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2016-02-18
Performing for the Camera
Exhibition
24 September 2022 – 31 October 2024
2024-10-31
24 September 2022 – 1 October 2023
2023-10-01
2022-09-24
National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)
2022-09-24
Conversations with the Collection
Collection based display
21 March 2024 – 16 June 2024
2024-06-16
21 March 2024 – 16 June 2024
2024-06-16
2024-03-21
National Portrait Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.npg.org.uk
2024-03-21
Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In
Loan-out
Untitled
image: 171 × 165 mm
frame: 458 × 402 × 20 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>In this black and white photograph Francesca Woodman crouches on the floor behind an overturned, open umbrella, the handle of which juts out toward the camera. The inside of the umbrella constitutes almost half of the image’s composition. Woodman wears a pale dress with a frilly, white, oversized collar. Her eyes are closed, with much of the rest of her face hidden behind the umbrella. Three of her fingers can be seen clutching the edge of the umbrella. Behind Woodman is a windowsill containing a pitcher, a potted plant and some other small objects. The window that dominates the upper left of the photograph is covered by transparent plastic. Along the right edge of the image a small wooden beam, perhaps a measuring stick, leans against the wall.</p>
<p>Woodman was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence from 1975 to 1978. At RISD Woodman was a fiercely dedicated and independent student who devoted herself exhaustively to her work. She set up a studio and living space in the shabby rooms of a former dry goods store, and frequently worked in nearby abandoned houses and other rundown spaces. This work features Woodman prominently as its subject. When asked by her roommate and close friend Sloan Rankin why she was so often the subject of her own photographs, Woodman replied: ‘It’s a matter of convenience, I’m always available’ (quoted in Rankin 1998, p.35). The photograph is also notably small-scale. Woodman’s square photographs rarely measure more than fifteen centimetres in height or width.</p>
<p>Writing of the photographs in which Woodman obscures herself in abandoned houses (see, for example, <i>Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island </i>1975–80, Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/woodman-untitled-providence-rhode-island-ar00357" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00357</span></a>), art critic Margaret Sundell has said that ‘Woodman stages an elaborate game of hide-and-seek with the peeling walls and chipped floors’ (quoted in Sundell 1996, p.435). In this work Woodman plays a similar game with the viewer by hunching over in the small space behind the umbrella. She does so within a space that is very similar to – quite possibly the same as – the abandoned spaces featured in many of her Providence photographs. Woodman’s frilly collar in this photograph might recall a little girl’s Sunday best, or else something with which a little girl could play dress up. Sundell has pointed to the artist’s frequently childish attire to argue that Woodman’s images convey ‘a sense of “playing house”, of the way a child feels at once overwhelmed and omnipotently invisible when infiltrating a place that adults once owned’ (quoted in Sundell 1996, p.435).</p>
<p>Art historian Harriet Riches has also written of girlishness in Woodman’s images. According to Riches, ‘[t]here is certainly in Woodman’s staged relationship with space … a sense of curiosity, and an uncanny confusion of the familiar and the strange, the domestic and the discomforting’ (quoted in Riches 2011, p.69). Although Woodman’s eyes are closed in this photograph, there is an inquisitive quality to her clutching of the umbrella, as well as to her strange and humorous crouched position in a space too small for her. Riches has argued that Woodman’s performance of girlish identity looks back ‘to an earlier state in which the body’s relationship to its environment is experienced through play’ (quoted in Riches 2011, p.69).</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b> <br/>Margaret Sundell, ‘Vanishing Points: The Photography of Francesca Woodman’ in M. Catherine de Zegher (ed.), Inside the Visible: An Elliptical Traverse of 20th Century Art<i>: In, of, and from the Feminine</i>, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1996, pp.435–9.<br/>Sloan Rankin, ‘Peach Mumble – Ideas Cooking’ in Hervé Chandès (ed.), <i>Francesca Woodman</i>, New York 1998.<br/>Harriet Riches, ‘Girlish Games: Playfulness and “Drawingness” in the Work of Francesca Woodman and Lucy Gunnong’ in Catherine Grant and Lori Waxman (eds.), <i>Girls! Girls! Girls! in Contemporary Art</i>, Bristol 2011, pp.63–86.</p>
<p>John White<br/>University of Edinburgh<br/>February 2015</p>
<p>
<i>The University of Edinburgh is a research partner of ARTIST ROOMS.</i>
</p>
</div>

Summary
2019-07-09T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Woodman crouches amongst an array of domestic objects, the curve of the upturned umbrella echoing the curve of her back. The umbrella is a much-used prop by the Surrealists, a fact that underlines Woodman's relationship with the movement. Her cropped body and averted gaze give her equal importance to the objects around her. Woodman’s photographs explore issues of gender and self, looking at the representation of the body in relation to its surroundings. She usually puts herself in the frame, although these are not conventional self-portraits, since she is either partially hidden, or concealed by slow exposures that blur her moving figure into a ghostly presence. This underlying fragility is emphasised by the small and intimate format of the photographs.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions adults architecture clothing and personal items crouching emotions, concepts and ideas features formal qualities hiding interiors named individuals objects people photographic plant plants and flowers portraits self-portraits studio umbrella window woman Woodman, Francesca workspaces