Betty Goodwin

Goodwin was born in Montreal, the only child of Romanian immigrants Clare Edith and Abraham Roodish.[5] She enjoyed painting and drawing as a child, and was encouraged by her mother to pursue art. Goodwin's father, a factory owner in Montreal, died when she was nine. After graduating from high school, she studied design at Valentine's Commercial School of Art in Montreal.

Goodwin launched her career as a painter and printmaker in the late 1940s. Her work began to be exhibited in Montreal in the early '60s. In the 1960s, she enrolled in a printmaking class with Yves Gaucher at Sir George Williams University in Montreal.[6] It was there where she began working with found objects and clothing in her prints, which brought her international attention.[7] Dissatisfied with her work, she destroyed most of it and in 1968 she limited herself to drawing.[6]

Goodwin represented Canada at the Tokyo International Print Biennial in 1974, and the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts in 1975. She received the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas in 1986.

Goodwin again represented Canada at the São Paulo Biennial in 1989.

Goodwin used a variety of media, including collage, sculpture, printmaking, painting and drawing, assemblage and etchings. Her subject matter almost always revolves around the human form and deals with it in a highly emotional way.[6] 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.[6] During the 1950s and 60s Goodwin created still life paintings. She also depicted scenes of Montreal's Jewish Community.

Goodwin became interested in found objects, and how they held traces of life. She created copper plate impressions of items of clothing to produce a series of etchings, entitled Vest, which gained international attention. Goodwin created a series of wall hangings entitled Tarpaulin from 1972 to 1974, which she reworked to shape into sculptures and collages. She received the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award of the Canada Council for the Arts in 1981.

Over a period of six years beginning in 1982, Goodwin explored the human form in her drawing series Swimmers, this project 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 to create drawings.[8] She earned a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1988.

After representing Canada at the Venice Biennial in 1995,[9] she was presented with the Gershon Iskowitz Prize of the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation and the Art Gallery of Ontario. In 1996 Goodwin donated 150 of her works to the Art Gallery of Ontario, which has the largest collection of her work. The Gallery staged a major retrospective that year, and she was awarded the Harold Town Prize.[10] That year she was acknowledged with an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, Betty Goodwin: Signs of Life. In 2003, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.[7] She died in December 2008 in Montreal.

She was married to Martin Goodwin, a civil engineer (d. 2008). Their son Paul died at 30 of a drug overdose.[6]

Solo Exhibitions[11]

• 1998 The Art of Betty Goodwin, Art Gallery of Ontario; Toronto
• 1999 - Galerie Rene Blouin; Montreal
• 2002 = The Prints of Betty Goodwin, National Gallery of Canada; Ottawa; Recent Works, Jack Shainman Gallery; New York

Group Exhibitions[11]

• 1955 - Pring Exhibition, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal; Montreal, Quebec
• 1962 - Penthouse Gallery, Crown Life Insurance; Montreal
• 1967 - Burnaby Print Show, Burnaby Art Gallery; Vancouver, BC
• 1973 - Galerie B Montreal
• 1974 - Spanish International Biennial Exhibition of Fine Prints; Segovia, Spain
• 1976 - Betty Goodwin 1969-76, Musee d'art contemporian; Montreal, Quebec
• 1985 - Sable-Castelli Gallery; Toronto, Ontario
• 1986 - Installations-Fictions, Galerie Graff; Montreal, Quebec
• 1990 - Galerie Rene Blouin; Montreal, Ontario
• 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; Betty Goodwin: Signs of Life, The National Gallery of Canada; Ottawa
• 1997 - Sable-Castelli Gallery; Toronto, Ontario
• 1999 - Cosmos, Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal; Montreal, Quebec
• 2000 - Old Bodies, Oakville Galleries; Oakville, Ontario; Betty Goodwin, Jack Shainman Gallery; New York, New York

• Order of Canada in 2003
• Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2003
• Harold Town Prize in drawing in 1998[12]
• Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 1995
• Guggenheim Fellowship in 1988
• Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas conferred by the Government of Quebec in 1986
• The Banff Centre National Award for Visual Arts in 1984
• Lynch-Staunton Award of Distinction in 1983
• Royal Canadian Academy of Arts[13]

• Bogardi, Georges. "The Studio: In her reconfigurations of ideas and found materials, Betty Goodwin transforms life into art." Canadian Art Vol. 11, no. 3 (Fall 1994): 86-93.
• Bradley, Jessica and Matthew Teitelbaum, eds. The Art of Betty Goodwin. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1998. ISBN 1-55054-650-3
• Driedger, Sharon Doyle. "Bodies and Blood: Betty Goodwin depicts profound inner landscapes". Maclean's Vol. 108, no. 49 (Dec. 4, 1995): 74.
• Enright, Robert. "A Bloodstream of Images: an interview with Betty Goodwin." Border Crossings Vol. 14, no. 4 (Fall 1995): 42-53.
• Goodwin, Betty. Betty Goodwin: Passages. Montreal: Concordia Art Gallery, 1986. ISBN 2-920394-12-6
• Kirshner, Sheldon. "Betty Goodwin: Canada's Grande Dame of Art." The Canadian Jewish News Vol. 29, no. 2 (Jan. 14, 1999): 11.
• Morin, France and Sanford Kwinter. Steel Notes, Betty Goodwin. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1989. ISBN 0-88884-602-9
• The Art of Betty Goodwin. Ed. by Jessica Bradley and Matthew Teitelbaum. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1998. Published in association with Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver. 192 pp. with 91 ills. (46 col.). 29 x 25 cm. LC 99-488135 ISBN 1550546503 In English.[1]
• Betty Goodwin. Musee d'art Contemporain, Montreal, 1976. 32 pp. 28 x 22 cm. In French. Artist(s):Goodwin, Betty[1]
• Betty Goodwin: Oeuvres De 1971 A 1987/Works from 1971 TO 1987. Yolande Racine. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1987. Organized and published by Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 252 pp. (2 foldout) with 129 ills. (56 col.). 27 x 23 cm. ISBN 2891920821 Bilingual in French and English.[1]
• Betty Goodwin: Parcours De L'oeuvre A Tracers La Collection Du Musee D'art Contemporain De Montreal (Betty Goodwin: Survey of the Oeuvre through the Collection of the Musee d'art contemporain, Montreal). Josee Belisle. Musee d'art contemporain, Montreal, 2009. 116 pp. with 54 col. ills. 25 x 20 cm. ISBN 9782551237838 Bilingual in French and English (biographical notes and brief entries in French only).[1]
• Betty Goodwin: Steel Notes. France Morin et al. Canadian Section, 20a. Bienal Internacional de Sao Paulo, 1989. Organized and published by National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Distributed by University of Toronto Press. 152 pp. with 55 ills. (29 col.). 25 x 20 cm. ISBN 0888846029 Trilingual in Portuguese, English and French.[1]
• The Prints of Betty Goodwin. Rosemarie L. Tovell et al. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2002. Published in association with Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver. 248 pp. with 251 ills. (36 col.). 28 x 23 cm. LC 2002-483164 ISBN 1550549251 In English.[1]
• Goodwin, Betty; Cindy Richmond, Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery (1996). Betty Goodwin: icons. Regina: Mackenzie Art Gallery. ISBN 1896470017.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Scott, Kitty; Edmonton Art Gallery (1990). Betty Goodwin. Edmonton: Art Gallery. ISBN 0889500657.
• Goodwin, Betty; New York Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art (1988). Betty Goodwin. New York?: 49th Parallel, Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art?.

• Betty Goodwin archival papers (SC 124) held at the Art Gallery of Ontario research library and archives
• Mundane Secrets: reflecting on the artist Betty Goodwin 2009 ArtsEditor.com article
• Betty Goodwin, Artist of Mourning
• http://www.artnet.com/artist/7196/betty-goodwin.html - Artnet profile on Betty Goodwin
• Betty Roodish Goodwin at The Canadian Encyclopedia