Chronology

1930–47

Born Judith Whitney Godwin on February 15 in Suffolk, Virginia, the second daughter of Frank Whitney Godwin and Judith Brewer Godwin. Her father, a World War I veteran, works briefly as a dentist, but his hobbies include architecture, painting, and gardening. Her mother is President of the Garden Club of Virginia and a historic preservationist. In her early years, Godwin remembers accompanying her mother to inspect the buildings and grounds of local estates, and working with both parents in the family gardens designed by her father.

1948–49

Attends classes (until 1950) at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. Studies art with Elizabeth Nottingham Day and Horace Day.

1950

Organizes a performance by the Martha Graham Dance Company at Mary Baldwin College. Meets Graham, who encourages Godwin to move to New York. Throughout her life, Godwin will express admiration for Graham and cite the dancer’s influence on her own painting.

First solo exhibition at Mountcastle’s Sport Shop in Suffolk. The seventeen included works are mostly representational scenes of local places of interest, but two are described in a Virginian Pilot article as “abstractions.”

1951–52

Participates in the Ninth Art Annual of Contemporary Virginia and North Carolina Oil and Watercolor Paintings, a juried group exhibition at the Norfolk Museum of Art and Sciences in Virginia. Godwin’s watercolor, Green Street, is one of ten paintings to receive an award.

Enrolls in a Bachelor of Fine Arts program (graduates in 1952) at Richmond Professional Institute, College of William and Mary (now Virginia Commonwealth University). Studies with Theresa Pollak and Jewett Campbell, a former student of Hans Hofmann.

The Docks wins an honorable mention in a group exhibition at the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia.

Additional group exhibitions at the Linden Gallery of Contemporary Art in Richmond, and Abingdon Square Painters in New York

1953–54

Moves to New York and stays at the Barbizon Hotel on East 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue.

Attends Life Drawing, Painting, and Composition classes led by Will Barnet, Harry Sternberg, and Vaclav Vytlacil at the Art Students League in New York.

Studies with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts in the summer. Continues lessons with Hofmann in New York in the fall. Many of her works from this year are abstract canvases in a palette of bright primary colors reminiscent of Hofmann’s painting.

Moves to an apartment in the Meatpacking District on Hudson and Jane Streets, nearer to the avant-garde art scene. Meets James Brooks, Marcel Duchamp, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Kenzo Okada, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Develops a close friendship with Okada, who will encourage Godwin’s interest in traditional Japanese art and the concepts of Zen Buddhism.

Solo exhibition, An Environment of Expression, organized by Theatre-Go-Round, a theater company that hosts rotating exhibitions by local artists at its summer venue in Virginia Beach.

1955–56

Paints in a darker color scheme using bold, slashing lines, which characterizes much of her work in the second half of the 1950s. Reflecting upon this period in an interview with Ann Gibson, Godwin would later claim, “if you were a [woman] painter . . . you had to paint as strongly, as violently as the men did.”

A verso dedication on a 1955 painting is the earliest mention of Anne Barclay, with whom Godwin maintains a romantic relationship for over twenty years.

1957

Lives and paints in Water Mill, Long Island, New York (until 1958).

1958–59

Participates in the Stable Gallery Invitational Exhibition. Betty Parsons signs Godwin as a regular gallery contributor and includes Godwin’s work in the inaugural show for her new annex, Section Eleven, in New York.

First solo exhibition in New York takes place at Section Eleven in February 1959. In the New York Times, Dore Ashton observes that Godwin “strives to suggest large spaces and shifting light …. She succeeds in suggesting echoing emptiness … [but] has not yet learned to give her paintings the body or weight her subjects need.”

1960–63

Second solo exhibition at Section Eleven. A review in Art News notes, “These are big, abstract paintings. The main images, black and white, thrust against each other with considerable force. Blues, greens and purples cool the edges. It makes a very clean, handsome show.”

Group exhibitions at St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. and University of Colorado, Boulder

Purchases a brownstone house in Greenwich Village previously owned by Franz Kline.

1964–70

Leaves New York, feeling disillusioned with the mercurial trends of the art scene. Travels for four months, visiting England, France, Spain, Italy, Iran, Egypt, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Moves to Connecticut after purchasing an eighteenth-century farmhouse with Barclay, and converts it into a home and studio. Her restoration of the new workspace is a starting point for professional work in architecture, gardening, interior design, and landscaping. In a 1977 Suffolk Sun article, Godwin will later recognize that the home renovation project informed her subsequent artistic work, admitting that her later paintings “often have a weight to them that perhaps they would not have, had I not actually been involved in physical effort.”

Joins the American Society of Interior Designers.

Creates her first environmental Pond Piece in Warren, Connecticut.

1970–73

Starts a four-month apprenticeship with a plasterer and carpenter, as well as a two-month apprenticeship with a mason.

Completes environmental sculptures, Timbers No. 1 and Timbers No. 2, at Saucer Brook in Warren, Connecticut.

1974–75

Commissioned to execute a group of drawings for a book on the history of Nansemond and Suffolk, published for the occasion of the Suffolk Bicentennial. The five resulting works are used to create a portfolio of lithographs in a limited signed edition, and are placed on display during the Bicentennial celebration. This is Godwin’s first public exhibition since the early 1960s.

Produces five original textile designs, three of which are reproduced from original works by the artist, for Bloomcraft Fabrics.

1977

Solo exhibition at Ingber Gallery, New York, opens in December 1977. Godwin will continue to work with Barbara Ingber and regularly exhibit at the gallery for the next ten years.

By this time, Godwin has begun to make use of warm pastel colors in her painting, in contrast to the severe palette of her earlier work. In an article for the Suffolk Sun, she declares: “I seem to have reached the age where I am more open about things, religion, my affection for people, the protection of animals and environment, and I am not hesitant to express these sentiments anymore.”

The show is reviewed in womanart by Joyce E. Davis: “Godwin’s intricate relationships of gesture, color, balance, and texture involve a particularly painterly instinct resulting in a romantic expressionism that conveys qualities of sensitivity and passion, as well as intellect.” Her admiration for Godwin’s work will develop into an intimate relationship with the artist that lasts until Davis’s death in 2010.

1978–82

The 1977 Ingber show proves to be a new beginning for Godwin’s career in the fine arts. Exhibitions open at Mary Baldwin College, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Womensbank in Richmond.

Group exhibition, Hans Hofmann as Teacher: Drawings by his Students, at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Massachusetts underlines Godwin’s connection to abstract expressionism and the New York School. The show is expanded by the American Federation of Arts with works by Hofmann and other artists, and travels across the continent until 1984.

1983–85

Found Objects, the landmark exhibition at Marisa del Re Gallery, New York, includes The Visitor, a painting with collage elements mounted on a window. Godwin will work with Marisa del Re until the late 1990s.

An Episode of Animals at Ingber Gallery further highlights Godwin’s artistic range, as well as her support for animal rights, with a display of recent work in a representational style.

Exhibition at Galerie Mukai, Tokyo, is the artist’s first international solo exhibition. Local interest generated by the show results in the acquisition of Strike by the National Museum of Art in Osaka.

1986–90

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg hosts Godwin’s first retrospective, curated by Cynthia Goodman. The show focuses on works between 1950 and 1982, and is reprised at several different institutions, including the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, Virginia, and the Suffolk Museum, Virginia.

Receives an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University.

1990–94

Selections from the permanent collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, including Godwin’s diptych Epic, travel to seven venues in Japan.

Judith Godwin: Paintings, 1953-1992 at Marisa Del Re Gallery is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Robert Hobbs and Gerald Nordland. As recognized by Hobbs, Godwin’s mature works continue to explore relationships of color and space, while remaining consistent with the paintings of the 1950s in style and quality. Many of the later works are executed in a larger format, and the compositions are often anchored by a signature sweeping arc, as seen in works such as Blue Note and Pale Thunder.

1995–99

Continues to exhibit widely, with solo exhibitions at the Amarillo Museum of Art, Texas, and the Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke (travels to multiple venues until 2000).

Speaks on a panel for “Hans Hofmann as Artist and Teacher,” a symposium held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

2000–5

Solo exhibition at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. NJ, part of the Mary H. Dana Woman Artists Series. In the catalogue for the show, Joan Marter highlights the artist’s recent developments with collage elements and found objects, praising Godwin for continuing to take risks and experiment in her artistic practice. “For Godwin, this identification of her entire career exclusively with an art historical style of fifty years ago hardly seems justified. For the artist is currently producing some of the boldest and most remarkable canvases of her career.”

Receives career achievement award (2002) and Doctorate of Humane Letters (2003) from Mary Baldwin College, as well as a professional achievement award from Virginia Commonwealth University (2005).

2008–12

With twenty-eight paintings, Judith Godwin: Early Abstractions at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio is the most extensive public display to date of the artist’s abstract work. The solo show travels to the Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2012. Gesture: Judith Godwin and Abstract Expressionism opens at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to coincide with the Anderson Gallery exhibition.

2016–19

Joins Berry Campbell Gallery, which presents solo exhibitions of Godwin’s work in 2017 and 2019.

Participates in Women of Abstract Expressionism at the Denver Art Museum in Colorado (travels to the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina and Palm Springs Art Museum, California), where her work is exhibited alongside paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, and Joan Mitchell, among others. As one of the few living artists headlining the show, Godwin gives numerous statements and interviews about her experiences as an artist working in New York during the 1950s and 60s.

2021

Dies in Virginia on May 29.