Edward W. (Ted) Godwin, D.F.A. (August 13, 1933 – January 3, 2013) was the youngest member of the

Regina Five Regina Five is the name given to five abstract painters, Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Douglas Morton, Ted Godwin, and Ronald Bloore, who displayed their works in the 1961 National Gallery of Canada's exhibition "Five Painters from Regina". W ...

, a group of five artists ( Ken Lochhead, Art McKay, Ron Bloore and Douglas Morton) all based in

Regina, Saskatchewan Regina () is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 C ...

in 1961 when the group got its name from a show held by the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

. Godwin is also known for his so-called

Tartan Tartan ( gd, breacan ) is a patterned cloth consisting of criss-crossed, horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven wool, but now they are made in other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Sc ...

paintings of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Career

Born in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, he attended the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and Art from 1951 to 1955. He also attended several

Emma Lake Artists' Workshops The Emma Lake Artists' Workshops are affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Summer art classes were originally taught by Augustus Kenderdine at Murray Point, Saskatchewan, Murray Point on Emma Lake (Saskatchewan), Emma Lake in ...

, including those led by

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...

(1959),

John Ferren John Millard Ferren (October 17, 1905 – July 1, 1970) was an American artist and educator. He was active from 1920 until 1970 in San Francisco, Paris and New York City. Early life John Ferren was born in Pendleton, Oregon on October 17, ...

(1960),

Jules Olitski Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Early life Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ...

(1964), and

Lawrence Alloway Lawrence Reginald Alloway (17 September 1926 – 2 January 1990) was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from 1961. In the 1950s, he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an i ...

(1965). From 1955 to 1964 he worked in commercial art. In 1962-1963, he spent the year sketching and painting in Greece on a

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...

grant. From 1964 to 1985, he taught at the Faculty of Fine Art,

University of Saskatchewan A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

(Regina campus) which later became the

University of Regina The University of Regina is a public research university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the University of Saskatchew ...

. His work went through several phases, from the abstract paintings of his

years (1958-1968) to his Tartan paintings of the late 1960s and 1970s, to his later representational landscapes. Godwin has had over sixty solo exhibitions beginning in 1958 and his group exhibition history began in 1955 and spanned fifty years. In 1999, The Nickle Arts Museum of Calgary mounted and toured a major examination of Godwin's Tartans. In 2008, a show titled ''Ted Godwin, The Regina Five Years, 1958–1968'' was held at the Nickle. His work is represented by major institutions across Canada, including The

, the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

, the

Art Bank, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the

, the

MacKenzie Art Gallery The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; french: Musee d’art MacKenzie) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds e ...

, and the

Confederation Centre Art Gallery The Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG; french: Musée d’art du Centre de la Confédération) is an art museum that forms a part of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. The art museum pavilion f ...

. He is represented by: Wallace Galleries, Calgary; Mayberry Fine Art, Winnipeg; Assiniboia Gallery, Regina; and Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver. In 2001, a documentary was made about the Regina Five, titled ''A World Away: Stories from the Regina Five'' in which Godwin appears.

Publications

Honours

* Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal (1978) * Saskatchewan Book Award for ''Messages from the Real World A Professional Handbook for the Emerging Artist'' as the best new publication (Educational) (1999) * Honorary Doctorate from the

(2001) * Officer of the Order of Canada (2004) * Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012) * Board of Governors Award of Excellence,

Alberta College of Art and Design The Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) is a public art university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that operates four academic schools. The institution originated from the art departmen ...

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 Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...

Notes

External links

University of Regina exhibition
* University of Regina Archives and Special Collections. Ted Godwin Fonds. https://www.uregina.ca/library/services/archives/collections/art-architecture/godwin.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Godwin, Ted 1933 births 2013 deaths Officers of the Order of Canada 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 21st-century Canadian painters Artists from Calgary Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Southern Alberta Institute of Technology alumni University of Saskatchewan faculty Canadian art educators Canadian abstract artists 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century Canadian male artists

Career

Publications

Honours

Notes

Further reading

External links