Artist: Lee Godie (American, 1908‒1994)
Title: Figures [Staying Alive]
Date: 1993/94
Medium: Mixed media on canvas
Dimensions: 23 x 29 in
Credit Line: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Paul & Pamela Boneham, 2024.26
Figures [Staying Alive], a drawing on canvas by Chicago artist Lee Godie, features two figures: one portrait bust of a woman, and a full standing figure. On the sleeves of one of the woman at the left, possibly a self-portrait, are the words “Staying Alive” in script and Godie’s signature, “LEE.”
Lee Godie was a Chicago-based artist working between 1968 and the early 1990s. During these years, she was homeless, gathering inspiration from her surroundings and experiences in the city to create paintings, photographs, and drawings. She often used photo booth pictures of herself, embellishing these with additions in ballpoint, felt tip pen, pencil, or crayon. Godie shared her works by directly interacting with the people of Chicago on the streets.
Although Lee Godie’s story and practice are now well-known, for many years, she was considered an eccentric “bag-lady” artist. She has since become a kind of legend and character deeply associated with the city of Chicago.
The two women in Figures [Staying Alive] are distinctly different from one other. The face in the foreground is a repeated character, thought to be a rough self-portrait version of Godie. This character has a vibrant blue headband, bright blush, large eyes, and a red top with black trim. The second woman, standing to the right, wears a black buttoned top and skirt with earrings, black stockings, and heels. This figure has short dark hair and a reddish skin tone. She also looks towards the right, off the drawing’s edge, though the figure appears to look at her. Godie’s signature “LEE” appears again in this piece, on the right side of the standing figure.
Lee Godie’s style and simplified forms, exaggerated details and comic-book-like depictions of figures also indirectly connect her work to some of the artists associated with Hairy Who? and the Chicago Imagists. For example, works by artists such as Gladys Nilsson’s print Plate Dancing in Carbondale and Barbara Rossi’s Moon Meet May, also in the Block’s collection,share some stylistic approaches with this drawing, especially in the articulation of outlines.
Since her death in 1994, Godie’s artwork has been shown in exhibitions in Chicago and beyond, at the Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin; the Hayward Gallery in London; the Smithsonian Museum of American Art; and the Museum of American Folk Art, as well as in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Chicago Cultural Center; and Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art.
Lee Godie’s Figures [Staying Alive] is the first work by Godie in The Block Museum collection and represents a work by an outsider woman artist. Godie’s work is an important example of someone who functioned on the margins of society while participating in Chicago’s art scene in an unconventional way. Turning the streets of Chicago into her home, storefront, and studio suggests a dedication to the city that made Godie a well-known, eccentric figure among locals and an artist with a unique perspective.
Contributed by Helaina Harris, 2024-2025 Undergraduate Curatorial Intern
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Debra Brehmer, “A Homeless Artist Who Staged Glamor Shots in Bus Station Photobooths,” Hyperallergic, December 4, 2015. Accessed February 13, 2025. https://hyperallergic.com/258214/a-homeless-artist-who-staged-glamor-shots-in-bus- station-photobooths/
Godie, Lee, with an essay by Jessica Moss. Finding Beauty: The Art of Lee Godie. Chicago: Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, 2008.
Lee Godie biography from Outsider Art Fair, accessed February 13, 2025. https://www.outsiderartfair.com/artists/lee-godie
Lee Godie, Wikipedia, accessed February 20, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Godie
Jeremy Lybarger, “Overlooked No More: Lee Godie, Eccentric Chicago Street Artist,” New York Times, Jan. 21, 2022
Patterson, Karen. Lee Godie: Self-Portraits. Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2015.
