The Woodmans [2010]

Francesca Woodman (April 3, 1958 – January 19, 1981) was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring herself and female models. Many of her photographs show young women who are nude, blurred (due to movement and long exposure times), merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured. Her work continues to be the subject of much critical acclaim and attention, years after she killed herself at the age of 22.

"The Woodmans" focuses on a nuclear family of artists and exploring the effects of the prodigiously talented daughter’s suicide, C. Scott Willis’ elegiac debut feature is an inspiring portrait of working artists, fragile and resilient. The film picked up the best New York documentary prize at Tribeca.

Francesca Woodman, who died in 1981 at 22, was by all accounts exceptional, and the body of work she left behind — mostly haunting photographs, many of them surrealist-influenced nude self-portraits — attests to a visionary imagination.

The temptation for many observers is to imbue every piece with premonitions of her final, self-destructive act. But Willis, a veteran of nonfiction television who was granted full access to the prolific woman’s photos, videos and journals, is more concerned with the fulfilling but precarious realities of aesthetic devotion, a way of life Francesca learned from her parents.

Her journals express acute self-awareness, longing and disconnection — all common enough traits in creative people. One of the observations Willis highlights, “My parents are so very married,” speaks to the intense bond between ceramist/sculptor Betty and painter/photographer George, together now almost 60 years. With their clear-eyed assessment of parenthood — George characterizes children as “gift-calamities” — and their unapologetic insistence that art is their chief purpose, they’re fascinating, likable subjects.

Francesca’s work awed her parents and brother Charles as much as it did her classmates and teachers. It’s now highly valued and in a way overshadows that of George and Betty. In interviews for the film, the Woodmans are candid about the unavoidable professional rivalry; understandably, they’re more guarded about articulating their grief. Filling that gap are teary moments from a few of Francesca’s friends. And joining Betty and George on a Venice gondola, DP Neil Barrett zeroes in on a moment that’s bursting with heartache.

The above video shows a collection of Francesca Woodman's video works. These extremely rare videos have only recently been compiled by the estate and shown only occasionally. The videos reveal a singular glimpse into the working process of this extraordinary young artist.

A brief description of Francesca Woodman's Life and Pictures

John 'Hoppy' Hopkins Interview (2009)

"Professionalism is a state of mind rather than a state of income" - John Hopkins

The significant counter culture figure John Hopkins on photography and 'Seeing'.

John "Hoppy" Hopkins (15 August 1937 – 30 January 2015) was a British photographer, journalist, researcher and political activist, and "one of the best-known underground figures of 'Swinging London' " in the late 1960s.

At the age of 20 he graduated from Cambridge University (which he had entered on a scholarship in 1955) with a degree in physics and mathematics, and embarked upon a career as a nuclear physicist. However, a graduation present of a camera changed his career. Arriving in London on 1 January 1960, he began to work as a photographer for newspapers, music magazines including Melody Maker, and Peace News. He photographed many of the leading musicians of the period, including The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He also recorded the seedier side of London, with photographs of tattoo parlours, cafes, prostitutes and fetishists.

By the mid-1960s he had drifted into the centre of London's emerging underground scene and recorded many peace marches, poetry readings and "happenings", as well as photographing leading counter-cultural figures including Allen Ginsberg and Malcolm X. He compiled and stencil-duplicated the names, contact details and interests of all of London's "movers and shakers". He then gave all of them a copy. This action is credited with greatly boosting the cultural velocity of the 1960s London-based underground movement.

In 1965 Hoppy started the first of a lifelong series of projects to democratise communication and information. The London Free school, based in Notting Hill, achieved few of these goals, but its cash-raising events gave Pink Floyd its start and Hoppy’s inspired collaboration with the local West Indian community helped bring about the first annual Notting Hill Carnival.

In October 1966, he and Miles published the first edition of International Times, Europe’s first underground paper. The IT launch party at the Roundhouse – with music by Pink Floyd and Soft Machine – inspired Hoppy him with Joe Boyd to open the UFO Club in a West End dance hall. Every Friday, Hoppy would sit atop a scaffold at the back of the club, playing records, making gnomic announcements, showing films, and projecting light shows; he imbued those nights of music, theatre and dance with an unforgettable atmosphere.

Joel-Peter Witkin - Vile Bodies

Part 1


Part 2