Judith Godwin

Early life and education

Judith Godwin was born in Suffolk, VA, in 1930 to a father who was interested in architecture and landscape gardening. His interests created an environment that inspired and encouraged Judith to pursue painting. She attended Mary Baldwin College in 1948 for two years. It was there that she met Martha Graham, who performed there in 1950. Godwin transferred to Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), now Virginia Commonwealth University, where she completed her degree in 1952. While there, she studied with Maurice Bond, Jewett Campbell, and Theresa Pollak. At the time, women were required to wear a skirt in the cafeteria; Godwin wore jeans after rushing from a studio class and was reported to the dean of the school, Margaret Johnson, who then met with her and changed the rule to allow women to wear jeans. While at RPI, she was in classes and close friends with Richard Carlyon.

She also attended the Art Students League of New York, where she studied with artists Will Barnet, Harry Sternberg, and Vaclav Vytlacil. During this time she also attended the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, and met Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Marcel Duchamp. She lives in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, but as a native Virginian, remains a member of the Jamestowne Society. Her papers are held at the Archives of American Art.

Career

Godwin's first solo exhibition was in 1950 at Mountcastle's in Suffolk, VA. At the suggestion of her RPI college instructor Jewett Campbell, she moved to New York City in 1953 to attend the Art Students League and study under Hans Hofmann, who influenced her work heavily. She studied with Hoffman in his studio on 8th Street, and has noted his wife Miz as another important influence. Godwin has said: "I think the main thing with Hoffman was that I felt completely free to do whatever I wanted to do." Notable classmates of this era were Will Barnet, Harry Sternberg, and Vaclav Vytlacil. Godwin credits Hofmann for making her feel at home after moving to New York, as well as with challenging her conservative color palette and technique. Hofmann is also credited with helping Godwin move away from the influence of cubism and towards abstract expressionism. James Brooks invited her to participate in the Stable Gallery Invitational show. In the late 1950s, through Kenzo Okada, she met and was invited by Betty Parsons to join her new gallery, Section Eleven, becoming the youngest woman to ever show her work there. She shared a studio with Franz Kline. She also met other prominent male artists such as Mark Rothko and Marcel Duchamp. Her success in mid-century Abstract Expressionism is notable, as there were few women celebrated among the movement associated with well-known male artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. In a 1981 interview, Godwin stated: "when I first went to New York in the early 50's, there were just a few thousand painters living there... now there are tens of thousands so many people trying to gain notice, its unbelievable how competitive it is...." She credits her professor, Jewett Campbell, with her desire to move to New York City.

In the 1980s she maintained three studios, one in a barn in Connecticut, one in Greenwich Village, NY, and one in Suffolk, VA.

In 1999 Godwin was a panelist for "Hans Hofmann as Artist and Teacher" symposium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Style

Godwin is considered a third-generation abstract expressionist. She practices a style of painting that emphasizes interpretation of experience and emotion through improvisational construction of the work, combining the language of color with gestural movements. Her work is influenced by environmental causes, gardening, modern dance, and Zen. Her passion for the environment is a recurring element in her canvases, although these landscape elements refer to the artist's inner terrain, which often echo the disturbances of external nature. Early influences come from her childhood, assisting her father with gardening. Soon after moving to New York, she became friends with Martha Graham through an earlier connection made while still a student at Mary Baldwin College. Graham's performances influenced Godwin, who often incorporated her dynamic gestures into the composition of a painting. Speaking of one such piece, her 9-foot wide diptych The Ring, Godwin has said, "I most often begin to paint by envisioning form and space in nature and then interpret my ideas and feelings into planes of color on the canvas. When I recognize an emerging form, I respond intuitively by evolving complementary sub-forms in colors and applications which feel supportive and foster development. In studying color and its behavior, I have learned to trust my intuition." Another of her paintings is titled Ode to Martha Graham.

Early in her career she used a strong, aggressive style in order to silence the male critics who dismissed women's contributions to the art world at that time. Over the course of her career her color palette has evolved, first softening and more recently becoming bright again. In the 1990s, Godwin began incorporating subtle assemblage to her canvases. Of this new direction she has said, "I think it came out of needing to add something to the surfaces of my paintings...I don't want them to jump out."

In a statement made for "Celebration of Women in the Arts," at Northern Michigan University in 1978, Godwin said: "The act of painting is for me, as a woman, an act of freedom, and a realization that images generated by the female experience can be a powerful and creative expression for all humanity. My paintings are personal statements - extensions of myself. I take a truth, an intimate emotion, a question, an answer – and paint it. It is natural for me to mediate upon reality rather than on the romantic, and yet my work often results in a mixture of both"

Awards and honors

1989 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

Professional Achievement Alumni Award from the School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

2002 Career achievement award from Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA

Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA

Personal life

Her family home in Suffolk was called "Whitehall" and her ancestry goes back to the first settlers in the Virginia Colony.

Godwin's mother was Judith Brewer Godwin who was associated with the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and a one-time president of the Garden Club of Virginia.

Godwin's father was Frank Whitney Godwin, a dentist and decorated veteran of World War I who later became a national vice commander of the American Legion, and was additionally an amateur architect.

Judith Godwin is a cousin of former Virginia Governor Mills E. Godwin, Jr.

During the 1950s she embraced the Zen idea, living with few objects in a modest apartment in Greenwich Village.

During the 1950s and 1960s she took on jobs restoring houses and working as an apprentice to a plasterer and mason, as well as some interior design work and fabric design.

In 1963 Godwin purchased a brownstone in Greenwich Village previously owned by Franz Kline.

During the 1980s she picketed against an annual furriers convention in NY.

Collections

Exhibitions