Francesca Woodman Zig Zag: Through the Lens, Book 7 (Unabridged‪)‬

Francesca Woodman killed herself at the age of 22, the biographical fact that colors her work and which it is de riguer to mention. She left behind paintings it is said, as yet publicly unseen, and literally hundreds upon hundreds of negatives and 800 proofs of black and white pre-digital photography. And since that very early death - and early death, whether suicide, accident, disease or murder has been sometimes seen with rabid cynicism as an outstanding career move - she has over the past decade and more become something of a cult figure. Or rather her imagery has, collected by the grandest, and given prestigious showings (in 2011-2012, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim). She, her life, and her subjects - usually one and the same - have been the subject of the kind of publication that needs a shopping trolley to get home. The 2006 Phaidon monograph has already been reprinted three times.