Judith Godwin in 2019
Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is delighted to announce representation of the Judith Godwin Foundation in Europe, coinciding with the first European exhibition of Judith Godwin’s (1930-2021) work. Expressions of Life will take place from 19 January to 2 March 2024 at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery. Associated at the start of her career with the Abstract Expressionist movement, this focused survey of Godwin’s work will feature paintings from the 1950s to the end of the century, richly illustrating the artist’s enduring influence over the landscape of American art despite the challenges she faced as a result of both her sex and sexuality. Berry Campbell, New York, continues to represent the Judith Godwin Foundation outside of Europe.
Long underappreciated, Godwin’s contribution to the New York avant-garde has undergone recent revision following her inclusion in landmark exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum, Whitechapel Gallery and Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, that offered a reappraisal of women abstractionists of the 20th century. Her thesis was – and remained – one of liberation from the conventions of a movement anchored in a language of masculinity and heteronormativity. Starkly aware of the limitations imposed on her by the milieu in which she practiced, Godwin sought to redefine such ‘masculine’ values by way of gestural abstractions that brought a loose geometry into dialogue with nature, dance and Zen philosophy. Her innovative reorientation of the language of modernism remains a radical statement today.
Judith Godwin (b. 1930, Suffolk, Virginia, d. 2021) studied at Mary Baldwin College, Virginia; College of William and Mary, Virginia; Art Student’s League, NY; and the Hans Hofmann School, NY. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, and an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Mary Baldwin College, VA. Collections include the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Yale University Art Gallery, CT; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; and the Amarillo Museum of Art, TX, amongst others.
Long underappreciated, Godwin’s contribution to the New York avant-garde has undergone recent revision following her inclusion in landmark exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum, Whitechapel Gallery and Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, that offered a reappraisal of women abstractionists of the 20th century. Her thesis was – and remained – one of liberation from the conventions of a movement anchored in a language of masculinity and heteronormativity. Starkly aware of the limitations imposed on her by the milieu in which she practiced, Godwin sought to redefine such ‘masculine’ values by way of gestural abstractions that brought a loose geometry into dialogue with nature, dance and Zen philosophy. Her innovative reorientation of the language of modernism remains a radical statement today.
Judith Godwin (b. 1930, Suffolk, Virginia, d. 2021) studied at Mary Baldwin College, Virginia; College of William and Mary, Virginia; Art Student’s League, NY; and the Hans Hofmann School, NY. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, and an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Mary Baldwin College, VA. Collections include the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Yale University Art Gallery, CT; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; and the Amarillo Museum of Art, TX, amongst others.
27 November 2023
