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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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Click here to Experience Eric Dever: Painting in a House Made of Air as a VR walking tour thanks to Eazel!

Eric Dever (MA ’88) is a painter who graduated from NYU Steinhardt’s studio art program.

His paintings are part of notable public collections at the Parrish Art Museum, Grey Art Gallery-New York University Art Collection, Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York, and Centre d’Art et de Culture, Saint Just de Bellengard, France. He was in the permanent collection exhibition, Parrish Perspectives: Art in Context at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, and on display at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York. Current exhibitions include the U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong, and Macau, Art in Embassies, Department of State exhibition.

Eric Dever: Painting in a House Made of Air is on view this month at Berry Campbell Gallery in New York City. The exhibit features a new body of brilliantly hued, large-scale paintings, which emerged when Dever was planting a garden at his Water Mill, New York, studio.

We spoke to him about his artistic process.

You paint in New York City and the East End of Long Island.  How do these locales influence your work?

My painting during graduate school, 1986-88, was influenced by urban landscape and physical forms of civilization. New to town from Los Angeles, I spent a lot of time in museums and was fascinated walking around the city and boroughs. My paintings were often elegiac; the AIDS crisis concerned everyone. The city was very exciting, one had the sense that anything could happen, and each day held life changing possibilities.

Since 2003, I have worked on the East End of Long Island. It is always exciting to move to a new place and my paintings reflected this change. I began with sampled color from a new landscape, but soon moved towards a more personal experience which space and contemplation seemed to permit.

Working with just white paint for four years gave me a heightened awareness of my material. Canvas, linen, paint media—painting itself became the subject of my work. The addition of black and red corresponded over time with an increasing awareness of the subtle qualities of ‘Clarity, Passion and Dark Inertia’ (exhibition NYU Kimmel Galleries, 2015), or the 3 gunas, a key aspect of yogic studies, and a means of interpreting nature itself.