c.1908-1994 · Chicago, USA
She appeared on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1968, announced herself as a French Impressionist, and outsold most of the artists inside.
The life
Godie surfaced in her sixties, selling rolled canvases on the museum steps to students and collectors she deemed worthy, and refusing buyers she did not like. She lived rough by fierce choice, keeping her money in bank vaults and her paintings under bridges. Chicago adored her, and the Chicago Cultural Center gave her a retrospective in 1993, the year before she died.
The work
Portraits of idealised beauties, Prince Charming figures and celebrities in ballpoint, watercolour and whatever came to hand, often on window-shade canvas. In Greyhound station photobooths she shot hundreds of self-portraits in invented characters, then hand-tinted them, decades before anyone said the word selfie.
Why we love them
She understood branding, location and audience better than any gallery, from the pavement. Total self-invention, zero apology.
Go deeper
- Lee Godie at the Outsider Art Fair
- Lee Godie on Wikipedia
- Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
- The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.
Kindred spirits
Inez Nathaniel Walkerc.1911-1990, New York, USA
Purvis Young1943-2010, Miami, USA
← All 155 artists in the field guide
Untrained and unstoppable, like them? Like us?