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Biography

Donald Woodman

Born September 26, 1945 – Haverhill, Massachusetts

Career

Donald Woodman graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1969 with a BS degree in architecture along with an extensive background in photography, having obtained work experience through the University’s Co-Op Program. During his last year in architectural school and immediately after graduation, he worked as an architectural photographer and assistant to the renowned architectural photographer, Ezra Stoller, who was based outside of New York City. Mr. Woodman photographed the architectural works of such luminaries as Phillip Johnson, Paul Rudolph, I. M. Pei and buildings designed by Skidmore, Owens & Merrill, while also completing photographic assignments for many of the major home journals and architectural magazines.

From 1970 to 1972 Mr. Woodman developed his creative photography abilities working with the internationally recognized photographer, Minor White at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. He assisted Mr. White in teaching workshops and was director of the Creative Photography Lab’s Gallery. During this period, he became knowledgeable about the history of photography while also developing hands-on knowledge of a wide range of historical and non-silver photo techniques, including photogravure.

In 1972, Mr. Woodman settled in New Mexico, working for five years at the Sacramento Peak Solar Observatory, doing sophisticated scientific photography and solar observations, including land-based and Sky-Lab photographic research. His responsibilities included managing the Observatories film processing laboratory and establishing and operating a facility to create solar observation films. This later endeavor stimulated his interest in film making and video work. Mr. Woodman pursued this work by enrolling in film courses at New Mexico State University , Las Cruces, NM. In addition he continued private creative studio work, creating a series of Southwest landscapes.

In 1980, Mr. Woodman enrolled in the MFA program in photography at the University of Houston, Houston, TX, studying with George Krause. He continued his interest in film and video, working on several documentary film projects and doing live video with various performance artists. At the University of Houston, he taught photography and also helped to establish the University of Houston’s Lawndale Annex, an alternative exhibition space for artists. From 1977 to 1983 he worked as painter Agnes Martin’s personal assistant while continuing his own studio work.

From 1980 to 1985, he created several major series of black and white photographs using 4×5 Polaroid positive/negative film. Mr. Woodman’s creative work during this period was partly supported by the Polaroid Corporation, which purchased and exhibited many of these images in conjunction with their prestigious, Polaroid Collection Program. His work is also included in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; the Museum of Art and History, Fribourg, Switzerland; the Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM; The Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM; the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, OH and various private collections.

From 1985 to 1993, Mr. Woodman worked on the Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light, a collaboration with artist Judy Chicago. Together, they created a 3000 square foot traveling exhibition which premiered at the Spertus Museum in Chicago, IL in October 1993, subsequently traveling to seven other museums. The bulk of the exhibition combines painting and photography, the two mediums fused in an entirely unique manner. This project aptly demonstrates the range of Mr. Woodman’s impressive photographic skills. The exhibition is accompanied by a book written by Ms. Chicago with black and white and color photographs by Mr. Woodman, published by Viking/Penguin. In conjunction with the Holocaust Project he was also involved in the filming and production of the video From Darkness Into Light: The Making of the Holocaust Project. Mr. Woodman has also produced the photographic work for Ms. Chicago’s two most recent books published by Viking/Penguin; The Dinner Party, 1996 and Beyond the Flower – The Autobiography of a Feminist Artist, 1996. Most recently he has done the photographic work for two art books published by Watson/Guptill: Judy Chicago: An American Vision, Edward Lucie-Smith, 2000 and Judy Chicago edited by Dr. Elizabeth A. Sackler, 2002.

In the Spring of 1997, Mr. Woodman participated in a week long workshop at the Santa Fe Photoworkshops in Santa Fe, NM in the use of Adobe Photoshop, thereby obtaining a strong grounding and knowledge of the use of the computer in the manipulation of photographic images. He feels equally comfortable working with both traditional photographic techniques as well as digital based images. Because of his broad understanding of the principals that underlie these two areas of photography he has been able to broaden the scope of his own creative work and bring this knowledge into the classroom. In the Summer of 1997, he participated in famed National Geographic photographer, Sam Abell’s “Project Workshop”, at the Santa Fe Photoworkshops in Santa Fe, NM where he worked on surveying his 30 year career as a creative photographer.

For more than 35 years Donald Woodman has pursued a very active career as a photographer. His work has been included in exhibitions both nationally and internationally, and he has worked with a variety of subject matter, using all camera formats, but he specializes in large format photography. In addition to his fine art photography, Mr. Woodman is an accomplished commercial photographer having work published in magazines including Time Magazine, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Art in America, Preservation Magazine and New York Newsday. Also serving as staff photographer for American Builder Magazine – New Mexico Edition. His work shows his ability to meld his broad knowledge of traditional photographic technics with the new advances in digital photography. As a teacher he has brought this unique understanding of photography to the students he has taught at several universities around the United States.

Mr. Woodman taught photography at the University of New Mexico, Valencia Campus from 1998 to 2002. In the fall semester of 2001 he team taught with his wife, artist Judy Chicago, a special project, photo-documentary class at Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY. Mr. Woodman’s students documented the project titled, At Home, the transformation of a house into a work of art. The 25 students, under the direction of Chicago and Woodman, revisited the subject of home 30 years after Ms. Chicago’s ground breaking Womanhouse project created in Californian in 1971. The students dealt with subjects that included history, generational perspective, self image, prejudice and rape. The photo-documentary students worked both on the house itself and created a museum exhibition about the project. In the fall of 2003, Chicago and Woodman again team taught, facilitating an ambitious inter-institutional, multi-site project in Pomona and Claremont, CA, titled Envisioning the Future. Woodman worked with four groups of artist and students, who used traditional and digital photographic processes as well as video to create art on the subject of the future. Additionally, Woodman also juried a photographic exhibition for Millard Sheets Gallery, Pomona Fairplex, Pomona, CA on the subject of Envisioning the Future.

During the Spring semester of 2006, Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman were in residence at Vanderbilt University as the Chancellor’s first Artists in Residence. They were invited to facilitate a project class for both students and community artists in the Cohen Building, a beautiful, neo-classical building originally conceived as a site for an art museum on the Peabody Campus. Throughout the course of the semester, twelve Vanderbilt students and thirteen community artists worked under the guidance of Chicago and Woodman.

Chicago and Woodman brought their unique participatory pedagogy to the project while Vivien Green Fryd, Professor of the History of Art at Vanderbilt, worked with them to provide a rigorous grounding in contemporary art and theory that supported and informed the artmaking process. These unique methods – which provided an integrated model of university art education – helped the participants find or expand their creative voices in order to produce the exhibition Invoke/Evoke/Provoke: A Multi Media Project of Discovery, which grew out of the participants’ personal experiences and deep beliefs.

The artists – who range in age from 18 to 60 – were from wide and diverse backgrounds and they brought this diversity to bear on the subject matter that emerged from the intensive, month long group process that provided the underpinnings for the artmaking. As the project developed, a number of themes emerged, including family; gender and sexual abuse; religion and spirituality; pain and illness; ethnic and cultural identity; female friendships and the effects of globalization. These are explored through a range of media – painting, sculpture, ceramics, weaving, installation, performance, video and sound.

From 1997 to 2002 Mr. Woodman served as Executive Director of Through the Flower, a non-profit arts organization based in New Mexico. He continues to serve as a consultant to Through the Flower for touring exhibitions and special projects while maintaining an active career as both a creative and commercial photographer working on various photographic projects and series.

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Education

Teaching Experience

Selected Collections