Betty Roodish Goodwin, (March 19, 1923 – December 1, 2008) was a multidisciplinary

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

artist who expressed the complexity of human experience through her work.

Early life

Goodwin was born in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, the only child of

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immigrants Clare Edith and Abraham Roodish. She enjoyed painting and drawing as a child, and was encouraged by her mother to pursue art. Goodwin's parents first settled in the United States, but when her father Abraham, who was a tailor, struggled to find work. They moved to Montreal, where Abraham established Rochester Vest Manufacturing Company Ltd. in 1928. Still, they struggled financially. When Goodwin was nine years old, her father suffered a heart attack and passed away. This traumatic experience impacted Goodwin throughout her life, and went on to influence her art. After graduating from high school, Goodwin studied design at Valentine's Commercial School of Art in Montreal.

Career

In her work, Goodwin used a variety of media, including

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

, sculpture, printmaking, painting and drawing, assemblage and etchings. Her art often involved themes of humanity, loss, and emotion. Many of her ideas came from clusters of photographs, objects, or drawings on the walls in her studio. She also used the "germ" of ideas that are left after being erased from a work. Goodwin launched her career as a painter and printmaker in the late 1940s. During the 1950s and 60s Goodwin created still life paintings. She also depicted scenes of Montreal's Jewish Community. In 1968, she enrolled in an

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

class with Yves Gaucher at

Sir George Williams University Sir George Williams University was a university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It merged with Loyola College to create Concordia University on August 24, 1974. History In 1851, the first YMCA in North America was established on Sainte-Hélène St ...

. It was there where she began working with found objects and clothing and how they held traces of life, in her prints, which brought her international attention."Betty Goodwin at Barbara Edwards Contemporary." ''Betty Goodwin at Barbara Edwards Contemporary''. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2017. Goodwin revolutionized the medium of printmaking when, in 1968, she began putting pieces of clothing through a printing press. From this experiment, she developed innovative prints, including her iconic ''Vest'' series. Dissatisfied with her work, Betty destroyed most of it and in 1968 she limited herself to drawing.Johnson, Brian D. "Body Language." ''Maclean's'' Vol. 111, no. 48 (Nov. 30, 1998): 88-89. From 1972 to 1974, she created a series of wall hangings entitled ''Tarpaulin'' , which she reworked to shape into sculptures and collages. Over a period of six years beginning in 1982, Goodwin explored the human form in her drawing series ''Swimmers,'' a project which used graphite, oil pastels and charcoal on translucent Mylar. The large-scale drawings depict solitary floating or sinking bodies, suspended in space. In 1986, to show the interaction of human figures she created her series ''Carbon'' using charcoal and wax for her drawings. Two more series followed: ''La mémoire du corps'' (1990–1995) and ''Nerves'' (1993–1995). She died in December 2008 in Montreal.

Personal

In 1945, Betty Goodwin married Martin Goodwin, a civil engineer (d. 2008). They had their son Paul in 1946. Goodwin experienced immense loss when her son Paul died of a drug overdose at age 30.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions *1976 - ''Betty Goodwin 1969-76'', Musee d'art contemporian, Montreal, Quebec *1996 - ''Betty Goodwin: Signs of Life'', National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa *1998 - ''The Art of Betty Goodwin'',

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

, Toronto *2002 - ''The Prints of Betty Goodwin'', National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Group exhibitions *1955 - Print Exhibition, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec *1967 - Burnaby Print Show, Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, BC *1974 - Spanish International Biennial Exhibition of Fine Prints, Segovia, Spain *1986 - ''Installations-Fictions'', Galerie Graff, Montreal, Quebec *1991 - ''Betty Goodwin'', Espacc la Tranchefile, Montreal *1993 - Fawbush Gallery; New York, New York; Les Femmeuses 92, Pratt et Whitney Canada, Montreal, Quebec *1994 - ''La Ferme Du Buisson'', Centre d'art contemporian, Noisiel, France *1996 - Stephen Friedman Gallery, London *1999 - ''Cosmos'', Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec *2000 - ''Odd Bodies'', Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario; ''Betty Goodwin'', Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York

Notable artworks

* 1979: ''Rue Mentana'' * 1985: ''Moving Towards Fire'' * 1988-89: ''Steel Note''

Selected collections

Her work is represented in many public collections, including the

, the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

, the

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (, MACM) is a contemporary art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Place des festivals in the Quartier des spectacles and is part of the Place des Arts complex. Founded in 1964, it ...

, the

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square Mile stretch of Sherbrooke Street west. The MMFA ...

, the city of Burnaby art collection, and the

Winnipeg Art Gallery The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...

Honours

* Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award of the

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study a ...

(1981) * Banff Centre National Award for Visual Arts (1984) * Prix Paul-Émile Borduas (1986) *

Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated dis ...

(1988) * Gershon Iskowitz Prize (1995) * Harold Town Prize in drawing (1998) * Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2003) *

Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

(2003) *

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria on 16 ...

* honorary doctorates from schools across Canada

References

External links

Betty Goodwin: Life & Work by Jessica Bradley, 2024. Art Canada Institute.

Betty Goodwin archival papers (SC 124)
held at the

research library and archives
''Mundane Secrets: reflecting on the artist Betty Goodwin''
2009 ArtsEditor.com article

on Artnet
Betty Roodish Goodwin
at

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; ) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with financial support by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and Society of Com ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodwin, Betty 1923 births 2008 deaths 20th-century Canadian painters 21st-century Canadian painters 20th-century Canadian sculptors 21st-century Canadian sculptors Anglophone Quebec people Artists from Montreal Canadian installation artists Canadian people of Romanian descent 20th-century Canadian printmakers Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Officers of the Order of Canada Sir George Williams University alumni Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Sculptors from Quebec Canadian women printmakers 20th-century Canadian women painters 21st-century Canadian women painters 20th-century Canadian women sculptors 21st-century Canadian women sculptors 20th-century Canadian artists

Early life

Career

Personal

Selected exhibitions

Notable artworks

Selected collections

Honours

References

Further reading

External links