Francesca Woodman’s undergraduate years at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1975 to 1978 were extremely prolific and significant. There, she created a body of work that formed the bedrock of her short but fertile career. In her studio (and home) – an old dry goods factory located off-campus, with no kitchen, heat, or shower – Woodman used the decaying building as her backdrop. There, ‘The line between her art and her life was nearly seamless’ (Keller, p. 176). Woodman trained her camera on the most available model she could find: herself.
While it can be a hazardous pursuit to assign meaning or symbolism to objects pictured within photographs, Woodman exhibited a somewhat fetishistic approach to her clothing, props, and location. In the present photograph, Woodman wears a vintage floral dress layered over a white pinafore. Combined with her black Mary Jane shoes, long hair, and arms gesturing to a mysterious, open door, Woodman appears to embody the storybook character of Alice in Wonderland.

Lifetime prints of this image are scarce. This early print is rendered with greater depth and richness in the darkest areas of the image as compared to the higher contrast, brighter prints posthumously made by her Estate. In the present print, Woodman’s feet appear to nearly dissolve into the shadows of the floor as if she were part of the crumbling house itself.

At the time of this writing, no other lifetime prints of this image are believed to have been offered at auction.