Betty Goodwin is one of Canada's most accomplished and influential artists, and her powerful works about death, loss and the traces of life have influenced a generation of Canadian artists. "Her work is not a catalogue of distress," Anne Michaels writes, but "a record of hope in its most distilled form, potent and fiercely earned." To celebrate a careeer that spans more than fifty years, this beautifully produced book presents Goodwin's most important work as well as many early paintings and prints published for the first time.

Born in 1923 in Montreal, Betty Goodwin is largely self-taught and made her breakthrough as a leading Canadian artist in the early 1970s. She uses various media and techniques, from etching to installation, to investigate the being and presence of the human body. Her work is in the collection of many public art institutions in Canada and has been exhibited internationally.

In the introduction, Anne Michaels links the intense experience of looking at Goodwin's work to the paradox of disappearance and materialization. Matthew Teitelbaum's essay traces the thematic developments in Goodwin's early work, specifically addressing the place of mourning in her art, and Jessica Bradley's conversation with Goodwin sheds new light on the artist's process. Robert Racine's afterword offers a personal reflection on Goodwin's achievement, and Anne-Marie Ninacs' chronology presents many new biographical facts on the artist's work and life.

This book was published in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada.

Jessica Bradley, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario and formerly Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, has curated numerous exhibitions including a number of projects with Betty Goodwin. Among them, she organized the exhibition of Betty Goodwin: Signs of Life (National Gallery fo Canada and Art Gallery of Windsor).

Jessica Bradley's profile page

Matthew Teitelbaum, Director of the Art Gallery of Ontario and formerly curator at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, MS, has organized a range of Canadian and international exhibitions including Paterson Ewen: Early Weathers/Heavenly Skies (AGO) in 1996.

Matthew Teitelbaum's profile page

ANNE MICHAELS is a novelist and poet. Her books have been translated into more than fifty languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction, and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas. Among many other honours, she is a Royal Society of Literature International Writer, a Guggenheim Fellow, has received honorary degrees, and has served as Toronto’s Poet Laureate. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted as a feature film and was chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 Novels that Shaped the World. Her latest novel, Held, was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and won the 2024 Giller Prize.

Anne Michaels' profile page

Robert Racine, Montreal interdisciplinary artist and writer, is known for his use of language, literature, music and performance based on repetition and poetics. He has been a friend of Betty Goodwin and an admirer of her work for many years.

Robert Racine's profile page

Anne-Marie Ninacs is a Montreal freelance researcher with MA degrees in both Art History and Museum Studies. She co-ordinating the 1998 Montreal exhibition Peinture Peinture, a major survey of contemporary Quebec abstract painting curated by Rene Blouin and Gaston St-Pierre.

Anne-Marie Ninacs' profile page