Betty Roodish Goodwin
"[...] I would say [Goodwin] is essentially the painter. She scarcely differentiates her forms; anatomy concerns her no more than it does Jean Dubuffet or Jan Muller. She flattens them out; runs them together. She is conscious always of the human dilemma the drama of the "Dybbuk", the tragedy of "Leavetaking", of "The t=Trial" - but the individual is nameless, part of the crowd, a dissolving member of the eternal flux. It isn't, however, a drab and hopeless tide, for Betty Goodwin's color is gorgeous."
Robert Ayre
Born in Montreal in 1928, Betty Goodwin was the only child of immigrant parents of Romanian origin. After completing high school, Goodwin studied design at the Valentine’s Commercial School of Art in Montreal. After graduating at the end of the 1940s, she began her career as a painter and engraver. In 1968, she enrolled to study engraving under Yves Gaucher at Sir George Williams School (now Concordia University). During this period she often included found objects and pieces of fabric in her work. Her work depicted dark human forms and were on the subject of loneliness and mourning. These works, with very particular mixed media, attracted international attention and were exhibited in the International Biennale of Etching in Tokyo (1974); Ljubljana Graphic Art Biennale (1975); Biennial São Paulo (1985); and the Venice Biennale (1995).
Over the course of her career, Goodwin received numerous awards and honors, including the Lynch-Staunton Award (1983); Banff Center National Arts Award (1984); Paul-Émile Borduas Award (1986); Guggenheim Foundation Award (1988); Gershon Iskowitz Award (1995); Harold Town Prize for Design (1998); Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2003); and honorary Doctorates issued by schools across Canada, including the University of Montreal, University of Guelph and University of Waterloo. Goodwin's work can be found in numerous Canadian public and private art collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
