November 14, 2004

• I love the details about her life and personality. ...flashing open her ragged coat stuffed with rolled-up paintings and announcing in a toothless but engaging way, 'Would you like to buy some canvases? I'm much better than Cezanne.' My favorites are this one and this art duet but most of her work is painful to view.
• A Bird A Female A Bird of Fasination.
• Wow, this is exactly my art style from fifth grade. I never knew I was a french impressionist! And here I grew up only 60 miles from the Art Institute of Chicago. If I'd known all I had to do was that to become famous in the art world, I'd have SO been there.
• I would say that this is Expressionism, not Impressionism. Impressionism really had its last hurrah in the 1920s. Photography pretty much replaced its purpose & reason for existance.
• Who knows what drives people to favour one artist over another. Sometimes wondered if it was more salesmanship than the art itself. Lot of her work reminds me more of American Folk artists than it does impressionism or expressionism.
• It's suggested that she invented a French identity for herself, so I'm not certain that the reference to her as a "French Impressionist" is meant to be taken literally. Here's some of what follows that phrase: In 1968, a French Impressionist artist appeared on the stairway of the Art Institute of Chicago. At the entrance to the city's most esteemed art institution, Lee Godie began to sell her canvases - paintings which she compared favorably with Cezanne's. The term "French Impressionist" was abruptly updated. The Godie article is featured in Raw Vision, a magazine marketing itself as a way to discover Outsider Art. I think she was also called a Street Artist. Maybe one of those terms better describes her work? Maybe Naive? I don't know.
• Thanks for turning me on to Godie, Argh.