Mary Godwin

Mary Godwin (1887–1960) was a British oil painter, water colourist and etcher, who often chose landscapes, interiors, and figures as subjects. She studied at the Women’s Department of King’s College with John Byam Shaw, and at Westminster Technical Institute with Walter Sickert and Harold Gilman. She was influenced by the Camden Town Group, and joined its successor, The London Group (LG) in 1914. She showed her works consistently from 1914 to 1960, a sustained career of almost half a century. She is recognized as an important contributor to the London Group.

Known initially as Miss E. M. Godwin, Mary Godwin soon dropped her first name, perhaps because another Chelsea artist was already exhibiting as E. Godwin. Miss L. C. Godwin, possibly a sister of Mary Godwin, was also an artist and lived at Stoke Bishop, Bristol before moving to Cornwall in the 1920s. Mary Godwin lived most of her life in London, She also painted in the West Country, France and Madeira, Portugal.

Thirty-three of Godwin's paintings were displayed in a solo show at the Leger Galleries in London as of January 1936,

Godwin's painting A Back-Room in Somerstown is featured on the back cover of Jane Johnson's Works exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists, 1824-1893 and the New English Art Club, 1888-1917 : an Antique Collectors' Club research project (c1975). Godwin's painting A Back-Room in Somerstown was published in The Sunday Times in 1914. The Queen magazine complimented her "subtleties of light and colour" in 1915.

By 1936, the radicalism of Mary Godwin's work was no longer being emphasized and the quality of her work was more recognized. The Times described the paintings in her solo show at the Leger Galleries as "so sedate in feeling and so completely realised in execution".

As of 1940, Godwin's work was shown at the Royal Academy.

Godwin continued to paint and to exhibit until her death in 1960, throughout a career that produced almost half a century of sustained work. A century later, critics are reassessing Godwin's work and that of other British women artists, recognizing the importance of such women’s artistic achievements and the transformation in gender roles that occurred during her lifetime.

Cultural references Godwin's painting A Back Room in Somers Town provides the title for a mystery by John Malcolm. Paintings by Mary Godwin and Walter Sickert are important to the plot of the book.