JUDITH GODWIN

Godwin’s thesis was – and remained – one of liberation from the conventions of a movement anchored in a language of masculinity. Starkly aware of the limitations imposed on her by her sex and sexuality, Godwin sought to redefine such ‘male’ values in energetic abstractions that brought a loose geometry, characterised by soaring arcs and sensuous forms, into dialogue with nature and Zen philosophy. Beginning in this time of experimentation and defiance, Godwin’s 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 Students 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. In 2025 The Arts Club, London, exhibited a solo presentation of works by Godwin. In 2024 Pippy Houldsworth Gallery presented Expressions of Life, the artist’s first solo exhibition in Europe. Other recent exhibitions include Modern Woman, a solo exhibition at Berry Campbell, NY (2023); Action/Gesture/Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940 – 1970, travelling from Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, to Foundation Vincent van Gogh, Arles_,_ to Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022-23); Something Wicked, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX (2022); Postwar Women, Art Students League, NY (2019); A Gesture of Conviction | Women of Abstract Expressionism, Setareh Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany __(2019); and Women of Abstract Expressionism, Denver Art Museum, CO (2016). Godwin has also had solo exhibitions at Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; The Delaware Contemporary, DE; Albany Museum of Art, NY; and the Amarillo Museum of Art, TX. Collections include the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; the 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.

Text courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery.