Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper on ink on paper
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>
Me and Benjamin in May
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
adults
artist’s notes
arts
emotions, concepts and ideas
exhibition: ‘Francesca Woodman’, Addison Gallery, Andover, 1976
formal qualities
furnishings
history
inscriptions
invitation
man
mirror
named individuals
objects
people
photographic
portraits
printed text
reading, writing, printed matter
self-portraits
sunshine
symbols and personifications
weather
woman
Woodman, Francesca
<p>This black and white photograph is attached to the centre of an off-white paper mount. Francesca Woodman appears along the right edge of the photograph standing with her back angled towards the camera. She wears a loose-fitting dress, and her hair is in a ponytail. Benjamin Moore, her boyfriend at the time, stands opposite her at a short distance in the middle of the image, also at an oblique angle to the camera. He wears a plain dress shirt tucked into a pair of dark trousers and holds in his left arm a tall, rectangular mirror that rests against his body. The mirror reflects light originating from outside the frame as well as what appears to be part of Woodman’s upper body in its lower right corner. Moore’s head is mostly cropped out of the image and he appears to be holding something long and wiry in his lowered right hand. Woodman and Moore stand in a nondescript room lit from the right so that they cast shadows against the wall behind Moore. Leaves and debris are visible on the floor. Above the photograph, written in ink on the paper mount, are the words: ‘me and Benjamin in May’. Typed below the photograph are the words: ‘photographs by francesca woodman / addison gallery, andover, mass. / october’. Woodman’s name is handwritten in slanted ink letters over her typed name.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver ink
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
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
Me and Benjamin in May
image: 143 × 144 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>This black and white photograph is attached to the centre of an off-white paper mount. Francesca Woodman appears along the right edge of the photograph standing with her back angled towards the camera. She wears a loose-fitting dress, and her hair is in a ponytail. Benjamin Moore, her boyfriend at the time, stands opposite her at a short distance in the middle of the image, also at an oblique angle to the camera. He wears a plain dress shirt tucked into a pair of dark trousers and holds in his left arm a tall, rectangular mirror that rests against his body. The mirror reflects light originating from outside the frame as well as what appears to be part of Woodman’s upper body in its lower right corner. Moore’s head is mostly cropped out of the image and he appears to be holding something long and wiry in his lowered right hand. Woodman and Moore stand in a nondescript room lit from the right so that they cast shadows against the wall behind Moore. Leaves and debris are visible on the floor. Above the photograph, written in ink on the paper mount, are the words: ‘me and Benjamin in May’. Typed below the photograph are the words: ‘photographs by francesca woodman / addison gallery, andover, mass. / october’. Woodman’s name is handwritten in slanted ink letters over her typed name.</p>
<p>This photograph was created while 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). This photograph is also notably small-scale. Woodman’s square photographs rarely measure more than fifteen centimetres in height or width.</p>
<p>Moore appeared several times in Woodman’s work (see, for example, 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-rome-italy-ar00353" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00353</span></a> and <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-ar00363" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00363</span></a>). On multiple occasions Woodman also used her photographs with accompanying written text as messages for him (see 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-ar00347" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00347</span></a> and <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-ar00356" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00356</span></a>). Here, however, the written caption does no more than identify the image’s subjects and the month in which it was produced. The typed caption refers to Woodman’s first solo show, held in March 1976 at Addison Gallery in Andover, Massachusetts. Woodman was just eighteen years old at the time, and the gallery bought six of her photographs. The partial cropping of Woodman’s head and Moore’s compositional near-decapitation exemplify Woodman’s often violent use of cropping (see also 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-ar00355" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00355</span></a> and <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-new-york-ar00362" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00362</span></a>). As the art historian Harriet Riches has written, by ‘taking advantage of the camera’s ability to crop and frame the body’, Woodman ‘exploits a photographic language of violence, as she explores the medium’s proclivity for excising subjectivity from the world’ (Riches 2004, p.99).</p>
<p>Mirrors appear frequently in Woodman’s work (see, for example, Tate <span>AR00347</span> and <span>AR00355</span>). The curator Harm Lux has argued, however, that the mirror does not serve a narcissistic purpose in Woodman’s oeuvre. Rather, mirrors often appear to be ‘mocking the voyeurist [sic] viewer’ by rarely reflecting Woodman very fully or clearly (Lux 1992, p.18). Here the mirror does just that. Although Woodman angles her head even further away from the camera than the rest of her body, the mirror at first seems to offer a glimpse of either her or Moore’s cropped and obscured face. However, closer analysis reveals no definite details in the dark, hazy shape seen in the mirror.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Harm Lux, <i>Francesca Woodman: Photographic Works</i>, exhibition catalogue, Shedhalle, Zürich 1992.<br/>Sloan Rankin, ‘Peach Mumble – Ideas Cooking’ in Hervé Chandès (ed.), <i>Francesca Woodman</i>, New York 1998.<br/>Harriet Riches, ‘A Disappearing Act: Francesca Woodman’s <i>Portrait of a Reputation</i>’, <i>Oxford Art Journal</i>, vol.27, no.1, 2004, pp.97–113.</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
2017-01-27T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>The inscription above the photograph reads ‘Me and Benjamin in May’. Benjamin P Moore was Woodman’s boyfriend, to whom this photograph was given as a gift. Both appear cropped and obscured in the image. Woodman would often paste photographs on to paper and in journals as works in progress, surrounded by expressive notes. She had her first solo show with Addison Gallery, Andover in March 1976, cited in the text below the photograph, and the Gallery subsequently bought six of her photographs, when she was just eighteen years old. Her photographs are not conventional portraits, but explore issues of gender and self, looking at the representation of the body in relation to its surroundings.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
adults artist’s notes arts emotions, concepts and ideas exhibition: ‘Francesca Woodman’, Addison Gallery, Andover, 1976 formal qualities furnishings history inscriptions invitation man mirror named individuals objects people photographic portraits printed text reading, writing, printed matter self-portraits sunshine symbols and personifications weather woman Woodman, Francesca