🔍
Advanced Search

Spouse of George Woodman (1932-2017); parent of photographer Francesca Woodman (1958-1981). From ArtNet bio: Betty Woodman was a ceramic artist best known for her exuberantly colorful and inventive work which gained recognition in the early 1970s. She often worked with a deconstructed version of the traditional ceramic vessel, with her pieces ranging from massive site-specific murals to fragmentary columns and carpet-like floor pieces. “It makes good sense to use clay for pots, vases, pitchers, and platters, but I like to have things both ways,” the artist explained. “I make things that could be functional, but I really want them to be considered works of art.” In its use of color and pattern, Woodman’s early work can be seen as a reaction to the overwhelmingly austere Minimalist and Conceptual aesthetic prevalent at the time. Born in Norwalk, CT, she studied art at Alfred University, and was notably the mother of the celebrated late photographer Francesca Woodman. Betty Woodman’s works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others. From Woodman Family Foundation website: Betty Woodman began her nearly seventy-year engagement with clay in the 1950s as a functional potter with the aim of creating beautiful objects to enhance everyday life. In the 1960s, the vase form became Woodman’s subject, product, and muse. In deconstructing and reconstructing its form, she created an exuberant and complex body of ceramic sculpture, drawings, and prints. Their signature is her reflection of a wide range of influences and traditions and an inventive use of color. Many of these traditions Woodman experienced first-hand: she traveled extensively, finding inspiration in cultures around the world. Woodman was raised in Newton, Massachusetts, and studied ceramics at The School for American Craftsmen in Alfred, New York from 1948-1950. She traveled to Italy for the first time in 1951, solo, having worked to save just enough money to buy an ocean liner ticket. Woodman found her way to Fiesole, and an unplanned apprenticeship in the studio of Giorgio Ferrero and Lionello Fallacara that altered and clarified the course of her work. She returned to Italy several times in the 1950s and 60s. She married George Woodman in 1953 and they moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1956. She returned to Florence in 1966 when she received a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship. In 1968, she and George bought a farmhouse in Antella, Italy, which profoundly affected her work and where they and their children spent significant time throughout their lives.