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A Life With Art | Gifts from Dwight and Sue Emanuelson
Columbia Museum of Art
Columbia, South Carolina
March 8 - May 19, 2019  
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Guild Hall Museum
East Hampton, New York
March 9 - April 6, 2019  

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View Works by Susan Vecsey  

View More Works by Frank Wimberley

That history has so often obscured and overwritten the creative and intellectual output of women is by now a very well-known observation that, nevertheless, continues to sting. “The men simply said, ‘Women can’t paint,’” recalls Judith Godwin, who began her artistic career in the 1950s in New York—Abstract Expressionism’s heyday—alongside contemporaries including Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan. The men, simply put, were wrong. This exhibition of Godwin’s paintings across the last half-century situates the artist’s early works alongside later pieces, demonstrating her consistent penchant for experimenting with figure, ground, and color, as well as her persistent dedication to playfulness.

Please read our online catalogue to learn more about the artist and her career.

Judith Godwin: An Act of Freedom
January 10 - February 9, 2019

NEW YORK, NY.- Berry Campbell Gallery opened an important exhibition of paintings by legendary Abstract Expressionist painter, Judith Godwin. This historic exhibition is a survey of sixteen paintings, including several large-scale examples from the 1950s originally shown at the Betty Parsons Gallery. This exhibition is accompanied by a sixteen-page catalogue with an essay written by Gwen Chanzit, Ph.D., Curator Emerita of Modern Art and Curator of Women of Abstract Expressionism (2016) originated by the Denver Art Museum. The exhibition continues through March 16, 2019. 

From 1950, when she first exhibited her work to the present, Godwin has held to her convictions, using a language of abstract form to respond with unbowed directness and passion to life and nature. For Judith Godwin, painting “is an act of freedom and a realization that images generated by the female experience can be a powerful and creative expression for all humanity.” Through her studies with Hans Hofmann, her long association with Martha Graham and Graham’s expressive dance movements, her participation in the early burgeoning of Abstract Expressionism, and her love for Zen Buddhism and gardening, Godwin has forged a personal and unique career path. 

Eric Dever's paintings sent me to reread a sestina by Fairfield Porter that opens, "No color isolates itself like blue. / If the lamp's blue shadow equals the yellow / Shadow of the sky, in what way is one / Different from the other? Was he on the verge of a discovery / When he fell into a tulip's bottomless red? / Who is the mysterious and difficult adversary?"

Who indeed. Color theory can be taught. Color phenomenology has to be submitted to as if it were a cruel and mute master. Dever, for four years in the 2000s, restricted his palette entirely to Titanium and Zinc White. That is how the current works at Berry Campbell come into being with such rightness, though his palette since then has burst open like spring.

July 16, Lavender Pilgrimmage (2018) may be the first predominately purple abstract painting I've ever seen that didn't succumb to the hue's clownishness. He accomplished this by adding various whites, including that of the canvas. Much else is at that level or better, including sonorous intonations like April 1st, Hellebores I (2018). May the discovery never end.

In 2016, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) unveiled “From the Collection: 1960-1969,” a chronologically organized capsule of its world-renowned permanent collection that went beyond the expected paintings, drawings and sculptures to include books, design objects and archival materials in immersive environments that conjured stylized time capsules. Reporting on that inspired reconfiguration, the New York Times pointed out that “treasures long secreted in departmental galleries have come to the center ring, like the Jaguar E-Type Roadster that dominates, perhaps a little too completely, the 1961 gallery.” 

Borrowing creative direction from MoMA’s 1961 gallery, the McNay takes a similarly unorthodox approach to its new era-focused exhibition “American Dreams: Classic Cars and Postwar Paintings.” Organized by the McNay’s René Paul Barilleaux, head of curatorial affairs; Kate Carey, head of education; and Jackie Edwards, assistant curator, it reconstructs a vivid slice of what’s been called “America’s Golden Age” by parking 10 painstakingly restored vintage automobiles inside the museum to engage in “unique visual conversations” with paintings that exemplify artistic movements that emerged from the economic expansion following WWII — specifically abstract expressionism, pop art and op art. 

In addition to paintings by such heavy hitters as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana and Ed Ruscha, “American Dreams” strives for “strong representation of women artists” by highlighting works by Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Judith Godwin and Dorothy Hood. It also celebrates the contributions of women in the male-dominated auto industry with complementary programs including a lecture by author, Girls Auto Clinic owner and self-professed “sheCANic” Patrice Bank (save the date for April 4). 

Interesting. Unusual. Uniquely NYC. Highlights of this week’s top events include “The Art of Fashion,” “Eric Dever: Painting in a House Made of Air,” “Race, Sex & Cinema: The World of Marlon Riggs,” and more. Get the NYC-ARTS Top Five in your inbox every Friday and follow @NYCARTS on Twitter to stay abreast of events as they happen.

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