| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Ted Godwin was a flamboyant abstract impressionist best known for his Tartan series. He was the youngest member of the “Regina Five,” a group of avant garde prairie artists who reinvented themselves in the early 1960s to become leaders of contemporary western Canadian abstraction. In later years, Godwin returned to representational work, doing landscapes of the Bow River focusing on the rich undergrowth of the shoreline. This series was celebrated with a touring exhibition, Lower Bow: A Celebration of Wilderness, Art and Fishing, accompanied by an exhibition catalogue (1992).
At age 14, Godwin enrolled at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and Art (now Alberta College of Art + Design). After graduating in 1955, he worked as an advertising artist at a television station in Lethbridge, AB before moving to Regina, SK to design neon signs. Between 1959 and 1965, he attended numerous Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops. His collaboration in a satirical show at MacKenzie Gallery (Regina, SK) in 1960 brought him public attention. In 1961, his work and that of his four colleagues, Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Douglas Morton and Ronald Bloore, were presented in a National Gallery of Canada circulating exhibition, Five Painters from Regina, which travelled across Canada. The bold, original paintings in this exhibition represented a new direction in abstract painting in Canada and reflected aesthetic developments comparable to contemporary New York art. Dubbed ‘The Regina Five,” they became a small but active artistic community in Regina (SK) throughout the sixties.
Godwin taught at University of Regina (SK) from 1964 until 1985. He had numerous solo exhibitions across Canada including the travelling show, Ted Godwin: The Regina Five Years, 1957 – 1967 (2008), originating from the Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, AB, and Ted Godwin Remembered, Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB (2014). Godwin was a nominated member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, a Member of the Order of Canada, and a recipient of both the Queen’s Silver and Diamond Jubilee medals. |