On Being an Angel gathers a selection of photographs by Francesca Woodman, offering an intimate look at the short yet profoundly influential body of work she produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Working primarily in black and white, Woodman photographed herself and her surroundings with a sensitivity that feels both deeply personal and quietly theatrical. Figures appear blurred, partially hidden, or dissolving into the architecture around them — bodies merging with walls, mirrors, windows, and fragments of interior space.

Throughout the book, the photographs move between presence and disappearance. The body becomes something unstable: a gesture, a trace, a fleeting form caught mid-movement. Woodman’s images often feel suspended between vulnerability and transformation, as if the camera is recording moments where identity briefly slips out of focus.

On Being an Angel presents these photographs with care and restraint, allowing Woodman’s distinctive visual language — fragile, enigmatic, and deeply expressive — to unfold across the sequence.

Artist: Francesca Woodman

Publisher: London: Moderna Museet

Format: Hardcover

Dimensions: approx. 7.5 × 9.5 inches (19 × 24 cm)

Page Count: 120 pages

Printing: Duotone black-and-white reproductions

Binding: Casebound

Language: English

Release Year: 2018

Francesca Woodman’s photographs feel less like portraits and more like apparitions.

Most of these images were made when she was still in her early twenties, often working alone in quiet interiors with a tripod and a long exposure. The result is a body of work where the figure is constantly shifting — blurred, fragmented, or dissolving into the space around it.

There’s something powerful about how simple the setup often is: a room, a wall, a mirror, a body moving through the frame. But the photographs carry an emotional weight far beyond their scale.

For photographers, Woodman’s work is a reminder that experimentation and vulnerability can be inseparable. These images don’t try to resolve themselves — they stay open, fragile, and alive in the space between presence and disappearance.