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Francesca Woodman 
Untitled [skull] 
1977-1978 
  
Silver print 
4 3/4 x 4 3/4 in (12.1 x 12.1 cm) 
  
Swann Galleries - New York 
Courtesy of Swann Galleries (Auction Oct 21, 2008, Lot 353) 
  
 
LL/31299 
  
Francesca Woodman''s work was distinctly autobiographical, inextricably linked to the daily events in her life. Her images are tinged with a surreal romanticism informed by the timely convergence of modernism and feminism. Her continuing commentary on personal identification, gender issues and the idea of "the gaze" distinguishes her pictures from other artists of the period.
 
Much of Woodman''s unconventional imagery was produced through her interest in working with objects and props, which she collected, drawn in by their forms and tactility, and used them to emphasize the gestures, expressions and oddities of herself and her other subjects. When Woodman''s friend Sloan Rankin asked her why she was the topic of her own photographs with such frequency she replied, "It''s a matter of convenience, I''m always available."
 
Woodman photographed her own body from the age of 13 until her suicide at age 22 in various surroundings, from Colorado, to Providence, to Italy, and to New York. Throughout her travels she used different photographic techniques and explored a range of emotions: from a sense of loss and longing found within her early portraits (which in the end, became the most prominent motif) to the playfulness that inhabited her work in the middle of her career. In one of her last letters before her death she wrote, "I do have standards and my life at this point is like very old coffeecup sediment and I would rather die young leaving various accomplishments." 
 

 
  
 
  
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