Untitled, Rome, c. 1977-1978

In 1977-1978, Francesca Woodman spent a year studying abroad in Rome developing many of the ideas she had been exploring as a student in Providence at RISD. She had actually spent much of her childhood in Italy, with annual visits to her family’s farmhouse outside of Florence as well as two full years of grade school.  She shared her parent’s deep-seeded affinity for the romantic, seductive country and her fluency in both the language and the culture allowed her a natural transition into the contemporary Roman art scene.  As Elizabeth Janus notes, ‘Unlike the other American students who had come for the academic year on an honors program at RISD’s Roman affiliate, she integrated easily into the city’s fabric. As many who met her at the time recall, she moved easily throughout Rome, constantly absorbing its energy, its visual splendors and contrasts, and particularly its quality of light.’

Many of the images she produced during this period are considered to be some of her most thoughtfully considered and emotionally mature. The present lot, without much question, belongs to this select subset. The self-portrait is extremely evocative; the artist's energy is palpable.  Her nude torso, its lower half crudely smeared with debris and bisected with panels of eroding wall at her back, her blurred, half-skewed face, and shut eyes almost recall the Surrealist games of Exquisite corpse that Europe’s avant-garde had immersed themselves in half a century earlier between the wars.  Within the circle of Italian artists she had befriended while in Rome were two young bibliophiles whose interests in Surrealism, Symbolism and Futurism seemed to have had a degree of influence on her. Examining the range of photographs made during this moment in her all too brief life, it is evident just how inspiring the experience was for the artist.

Lifetime prints by Woodman are exceedingly rare - only one other vintage print of this image has been previously offered at auction.