Lee Godie – Wikipedia

Lee Godie (born as Jamot Emily Godee; September 1, 1908 in Chicago, died March 2, 1994 in Plato Center, Illinois^[1]) was an American self-taught artist active in Chicago from the late 1960s to early 1990s. She was a prolific Outsider artist,^[2] known for her paintings and modified photographs exhibited in galleries and museums such as the Hayward Gallery in London and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.^[3] She is often considered Chicago’s most collected artist.^[2][4]

Godie was born in Chicago. She and her ten siblings grew up in a Christian Science household. Her family lived in a small house on the Northwest Side; she slept in the attic with her sisters. In 1933 she married George Hathaway, a steam mechanic, with whom she had three children; a son died of pneumonia at the age of 18 months and a daughter died of diphtheria at the age of 7. She remarried Austin Benson in 1948 and moved to live with him in Tacoma in the hope that her husband would encourage her singing career. Instead of a singing career, she got pregnant again and worked on his chicken farm. Shortly thereafter, she ran away, abandoning her family forever.^[5] She changed her life and reinvented herself as an artist in Chicago. Godie stayed in downtown Chicago for nearly 30 years, during which time he became a facet of the social milieu. She lived on the streets, slept outdoors, even when it was below zero or in temporary hotels. She was seen “on a concrete bench… with her large black portfolio in hand.” Apparently she chose to live outdoors because she had a lot of money saved up, but she didn’t seem to like being indoors.^[4]

Godie had a unique style of fashion, wearing various panels of fabric that she wrapped around herself or fur coats assembled from various pieces. She also used her colors to transform her looks, drawing “big orange circles on each cheek” and eyeshadow painted on.^[2]

An article about Godie in the Wall Street Journal drew the attention of one of her daughters, Bonnie Blank, to where she lived.^[6] Blank hadn’t seen her mother since she was three years old. When Godie met her daughter, she insisted that Blank take art classes, which she taught herself. In 1991, Blank received guardianship for her mother, who had dementia, and moved with her back to Plato Center, Illinois, where her mother lived in a nursing home until her death in 1994.^[6]

From 1968, Godie could be seen on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago selling her art to passers-by. She later moved to a location on Chicago’s North Side after a disagreement with a curator.^[6] She lived and worked primarily in Chicago’s Downtown Loop and Gold Coast neighborhoods.^[2]

Godie, who described herself as a French Impressionist, considered her work to be as important as that of Paul Cézanne.^[7] She was very selective about who she sold her work to and even who she spoke to, preferring to associate with “artists.”^[6] She would only sell or give away her work to those she liked.^[8] and she incorporated performances such as song and dance into the process of selling and making her art. The transaction of purchasing her art was viewed by Godie as “part of the magic, even part of the art itself.”^[2]

Godie’s paintings were created in a variety of mediums, including watercolor, pencil, tempera, ballpoint pen, and chalk, and on a range of substrates, including canvas, poster board, sheet paper, and discarded shutters. Some of her works consisted of several parts assembled in the manner of a triptych or book. Most often, Godie painted female busts, which she considered “an expression of beauty.”^[9] Her portraits were often personal. She drew herself, friends, passers-by and famous people. She also created archetypal figures, partly as cultural icons, partly as personal symbolism.^[2] Artist and design editor of the Chicago Tribune, David Syrek, says, “Lee’s paintings have an intensity not found in a lot of outsider art.”^[7] Art critic Dennis Adrian called her work bold and strong.^[4]

Among the artworks Godie has created are the black and white photo booth snaps she took of herself in various disguises. Godie began working on these images in the 1970s.^[9] She would take these photos and beautify certain parts of them by coloring her lips or nails or drawing darker eyebrows.^[10] Her photographs are often referred to as her “most esteemed, inventive works”. She dressed differently for each photo, adding color and words or deleting parts of the photos. Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery in London, says of her photographs: “These images are very powerful on several levels. They are just as captivating as the work of any trained photographer.”^[8]

Godie’s works have been shown in numerous exhibitions. Between November 13, 1993 and January 16, 1994, an exhibition entitled Artist Lee Godie: A Twenty-Year Retrospective was shown at the Chicago Cultural Center, curated by Michael Bonesteel, who wrote the article “Lee Godie” in Raw Vision magazine. From September 12, 2008 to January 3, 2009, an exhibition of over 100 works by Lee Godie entitled Finding Beauty: The Art of Lee Godie exhibited at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Arkansas Arts Center, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

1. ↑ Chicago News – Chicago Tribune. In: chicagotribune.com. Chicago Tribune, accessed February 3, 2023.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Godie, Lee » INTUIT – The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. In: art.org. web.archive.org, 2015, archived by Original am March 5, 2015; accessed February 3, 2023.
3. ↑ Lee Godie – Smithsonian American Art Museum. In: si.edu. americanart.si.edu, accessed February 3, 2023 (American English).
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Baglady Artist Lee Godie Is a Wacky Success—her Paintings Are Off the Wall and in Demand : People.com. In: people.com. web.archive.org, 2015, archived by Original am March 7, 2015; accessed February 3, 2023.
5. ↑ Jeremy Lybarger: Overlooked No More: Lee Godie, Eccentric Chicago Street Artist. In: The New York Times. 2022, ISSN 0362-4331 (nytimes.com).
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Frank Maresca; Roger Ricco (Herg): American Self-Taught: Paintings and Drawings by Outsider ArtistsNew York, pp. 80–81, ISBN 0-394-58212-8
7. ↑ ^{a b} Chicago `outsider’ Artist, Street Person lee Godie. In: chicagotribune.com. Chicago Tribune, accessed February 3, 2023.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Lee Godie: The artist not in residence. In: co.uk. .uk, accessed February 3, 2023.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Portraits of an Artist. In: chicagotribune.com. Chicago Tribune, accessed February 4, 2023.
10. ↑ Finding Beauty: The Art of Lee Godie » INTUIT – The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. In: art.org. web.archive.org, 2013, archived by Original am July 17, 2013; accessed February 4, 2023.