One rainy fall day in the early 70's I took the train from Aurora to Chicago where I planned to spend the afternoon visiting the Art Institute. After passing through the revolving doors of the museum, I happened to look back and was startled to see an old woman, her face pressed to the glass, beckoning me with a long pointed finger. I tried to ignore her but later in the afternoon, as I was leaving the building, she stopped me and tried to sell me some of her artworks. She referred to them as etchings but they were really drawings and they were of mushrooms. That was my first encounter with Lee Godie. I wouldn't see her again for another three years but at the time I had no reason to think that I would ever see her again.

About three years later I became a student at the School of the Art Institute. I had a number of part time jobs but about a year after moving to Chicago I started working at the Art Institute's Ryerson Library. After that I used to see Lee on a regular basis. She was always hanging around the steps or the front lobby trying to sell her work. Periodically the guards would try to clear everyone away from the revolving doors and Lee would skulk away, at least until the guards went back inside the building. For the guards it was as hopeless as chasing a squirrel away from a bird feeder.

I didn't pay much attention to her. She would unroll paintings done on pieces of cut up canvas and try to hawk them to passersby. I didn't find them especially interesting but one day, after my roommate expressed an interest in her work and while he was home in New York on vacation, I decided to buy him a painting. I stopped to talk to Lee in the front lobby of the museum and told her I was interested in making a purchase. She pulled a profile of a woman out of her portfolio and started to describe it. "Don't you think she has a lovely smile?" she purred. She had a very affected and romantic way of speaking when she was trying to make a sale. She described the necklace around the woman's neck and her matching earrings and the lovely lace around her bodice. When it came to the price we finally agreed on $5.00 but because that was such a bargain and she didn't want anyone to see that I had bought it at such a low price I had to quickly slip her the five dollar bill while we were sitting side by side on a bench. The innocent purchase of a painting looked more like a drug deal or the passing of secret information.

I took the painting home and leaned it against the wall on the sun porch. It just happened to be in my line of site while I was sitting on the couch and over the summer I really came to like it. The beautiful chin and neckline were especially nice. I decided to keep the painting and I never even told my roommate that I had originally bought it for him.

Over the next few months I bought more paintings from Lee and got to know her a little better. A few of her quirks became apparent. The most annoying to me (and probably to most of her customers) was that she would show you really wonderful paintings and then not be willing to sell them. The majority of her work consisted of weakly colored copies of the same models that she would do over and over but occasionally she would unroll a striking portrait in brilliant and shocking color. Most of these paintings I never saw again. Lee once told me that she liked to sell paintings on the Gold Coast because that's where she made the "big money" so perhaps many of them are on condo walls or rolled up and forgotten in lake front closets.

She had a way of sizing up her customers by the way they dressed. One day I was talking to one of the drawing curators at the Art Institute, and I mentioned to her that I had bought one of Lee's paintings for five dollars. "Five dollars", she snapped, "I paid a hundred for mine!" Occasionally this curator would wear a fur coat to work and that was just the kind of thing to prompt observant Lee to hike up the price. Lee had all kinds of business arrangements you could work out. You could rent her paintings and if she knew you she would sell them on the easy payment plan. If you got tired of one you could trade it in for another.

One day she showed me a painting that appeared to have been painted in oils and was unlike any other Godie painting I had seen. Most of her paintings were outlined in pencil or ball point pen and were painted in fast drying watercolor or acrylic. Sometimes she would "varnish" them by rubbing them with a wax candle. The first painting I bought from her smelled like Bayberry for years. A furniture salesman at one of the Loop department stores had once explained to her that a certain piece of furniture was covered in hundreds of coats of varnish and that all the varnish not only enhanced the looks of the piece but also added to its value. Apparently, Lee decided that if it would work with furniture, it would work with art. I looked the oil painting over and on the back was the title, "Three Platinum Blondes". I looked at the title and then looked at the painting again. "Lee, I said, "Why is this painting called, Three Platinum Blondes, but it's a picture of two women?" Lee looked at the painting, thought a moment and then said, "You know I rented this out to a fellow and he just returned it this morning and I didn't check it. Do you think he stole one of my platinum blondes?" I guess that was the downside of renting out paintings.

Lee usually didn't have much of a sense of humor but I saw her laugh a couple of times. One day she came into the Ryerson Library where I worked and pulled an i.o.u. out of her pocket. "I think you owe me some money." she said. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a "paid in full" receipt that she had written on a Lipton's tea bag wrapper. Lee looked at it and then smiled. "You paid FULL price?", she giggled. "Don't tell anyone or they'll think you're in love with me!" She let out a shriek and rushed out of the library.

She was always very critical of the way I dressed. One day I only half jokingly asked her if I could go with her to the Gold Coast to sell some of my drawings. She started to snicker. "Well, if you'd dress up!", she replied. Another time I was wearing a denim sport jacket. Lee grabbed it by the lapel. "Where'd you get this?", she hissed. "They make those in Korea." Apparently, for her the ultimate in declasse attire. 

Lee's own wardrobe was unusual. One day she asked me if I'd ever seen her in her fur coat. "It make's me look beautiful", she told me. When I finally saw her wearing it, the coat was missing about 20% of its fur. Sometimes she wore fancy white men's dress shoes, the kind with a permanent plastic coating. Other times she wore sandals and I remember long green toenails protruding from under her long skirt. One day she was sporting a visor on her head that had "Panama City" emblazoned across the front. I asked her where she got it. "Well, I fell heir to this" was her reply. Another student told me later that he had spotted Lee fishing it out of the trash. After the death of Elvis Presley, Lee wore a black armband for several days. "He seemed like such a nice young man.", she commented. If you live in Chicago for any length of time, and especially if you take public transportation, you become a connoisseur of body odor.

One day my friend Bob Agne and I were talking to Lee on the front steps of the Art Institute. She nonchalantly reached into her large coat pocket and pulled out an iced coke in a glass. She took a drink and returned the glass to her pocket. Bob and I hooted and asked Lee where she got the coke. "They make a really good coke over at the Sante Fe building", she replied. A holiday was coming up and Lee asked us what our plans were. I told her I was going to wander around Rosehill Cemetery. I liked to go there to look at the sculpture, the stained glass windows, and the big Ginkgo trees. "Good night", she shrieked at the top of her lungs, "the Cemetery!"

There used to be a store called "Brazil Contempo" a couple of blocks north of the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue. They sold the kind of sleek oversized leather furniture you expect to see in corporate offices or penthouse apartments. One day, as I passed the store, I happened to glance through the window and was surprised to see Lee sitting in the middle of a large pinto spotted sofa, busily sketching away.

Another time, in the same area but a block over on Wasbash, I was walking along after work and noticed that the stop light wasn't working. Then I spotted Lee, who was in the middle of the street calmly directing traffic, putting up her hand to stop the traffic in one direction and motioning the cars to proceed in the other. Whatever plans I had must have been forgotten because I remember walking with her back to the Art Institute.

She wasn't appreciative of the automobile. One day in a very philosophical tone she said, "You know Joe, I think we've had just about enough of the automobile in this country." After talking with her for a while it came out that she had nearly been hit by a car that morning while crossing Lake Shore Drive.

A few times she suspiciously asked me if I liked bunnies. She was acquainted with a couple of Playboy bunnies and had offered me an introduction on more than one occasion. She could be generous. When I worked at the Ryerson library, for reasons I can't recall but had nothing to do with lack of funds, I usually didn't eat lunch. I must have mentioned this to Lee and she decided I needed to be provided for. One day she popped into the library, threw a package of instant soup mix in front of me, said, "There, there's you some lunch.", and quickly popped out again.

One day Lee came into the library and offered me a photo self-portrait with three silver goblets for five dollars. There was absolutely no wrangling so she must have been short on cash. According to her story she bought the three goblets used at Marshall Field's. She buried two of them in Grant Park for safekeeping and one she used when dining at local eating establishments. She would order hot water and then add bouillon cubes or instant soup mix for an inexpensive though well appointed meal. At some point she found that her customers were interested in buying the photos and that if she attached a photo to a painting the painting was much easier to sell. I paid twenty dollars for one painting that consisted of three separate paintings of striped perfume bottles. The bottles were done in ball point pen with dark solid blue stripes and the backgrounds were painted in heavily pigmented orange. The three paintings were sewn together with heavy red yarn and in the lower left hand corner Lee had attached a self-portrait photo of her holding the painting. I guess that was the ultimate "certificate of authenticity".

One day at the old rear entrance of the School of the Art Institute, which was near the old (I'm starting to feel old here) Goodman Theater entrance, Lee unrolled a long portrait of a woman with a large inexpensive plastic cameo pinned to her bodice. I thought it was interesting so I bought it but was surprised to see Lee unpin the cameo and drop it into her portfolio before handing me the picture. The cameo "made" the picture and I asked Lee, "Doesn't the cameo come with the painting?" "Are you kidding, she said, these are hard to come by!"

One morning Lee came into the library and unrolled an incredible portrait painted in vivid purple, orange, and cherry. I immediately decided to buy it and Lee finally agreed to sell it to me for fifty dollars but I had to wait until the next day for delivery. Of course, the next day she brought in a mediocre "quickie" copy with washed out colors. I was furious and declined to buy the painting. Lee huffed out of the Library but returned a few minutes later. "Are you going to buy it or not?", she screeched. I declined again and decided not to waste my time trying to buy anything else from her.

I don't remember the exact time period, but a month or two passed and I began to imagine that I was missing out on all kinds of Godie masterpieces so I decided to apologize. One morning I spotted Lee leaning over a bench in the front lobby of the Art Institute. I walked up to her and touched her shoulder. She jumped a mile high and when she turned around her mouth was stuffed with peanut butter and crackers. "Oh, I'm sorry, I said, I didn't know you were eating." I started back to the Library but Lee grabbed my arm like a vice. When I turned around she swallowed and put on one of her sweetest smiles and in such a voice said "I'm sooo sorry we quarreled."

In the mid 70's there was a terrible accident on the Chicago Elevated System. One of the trains ran into another and one or both were pushed over the tracks. I don't remember all the details but I think that people were killed and I'm sure many were injured. Lee told me about passing the scene on a moonlit night after the accident but while the train was still dangling over the tracks. "I hate to say this Joe, but there was a mysterious beauty about the scene." She had a much longer story, the details of which I don't remember but included her soul leaving her body. I think she said she detailed this experience on the back of one of her paintings.

One afternoon while I was walking south on Michigan Avenue, I happened to spot Lee standing over the viaduct just south of the Art Institute. She was wearing a smart large brimmed straw hat and had assumed "quite the pose". From where I was standing she might have been Garbo. I walked over to her and started to talk. She had a stack of paintings resting on top of the concrete balustrade and a gust of wind started to blow them away. I reached out and secured them. "Oh, she cooed, how gallant!" She pronounced it gah-lahnt. A while later a woman Lee knew stopped and started talking. Lee introduced us and when the woman started to leave Lee leaned forward and whispered to her pityingly, "By the way....get a new dress!"

One of Lee's favorite places to stay was the Oxford House. She told me once that she wrote her brother a card and noted that "the cleanliness of the world is contained in the Oxford House of Chicago". A couple of times she suggested that I give her a call there. One night I decided to try and when I asked the operator if Lee Godie was staying there she immediately replied, "No, she's not here tonight." She didn't even have to check! A few times Lee tried to schedule appointments for a one man showing of her work at her locker at the bus station but I never had the time.

On a hot summer day Lee burst into the library with her portfolio. "We're friends aren't we?", she asked dramatically. "There are a couple of girls outside and it looks like it may get rough!" She sounded frightened and asked me to watch her portfolio for a while. In the 70's Lee was pretty much a mystery and I couldn't resist the temptation to look inside. The main things I remember were a jumbo Hershey bar that was so hot it hung limply over my hand and in a red wallet there was a marvelous small color snapshot of a younger Lee, casual but fashionable and wearing a heavy cable turtleneck sweater and with beautiful honey streaked hair arranged in a French twist. An hour or so later she returned for her things. It turned out that a couple of school girls had been making fun of her and I guess she thought they were going to get violent. I alluded more than once to the color photo. I thought it would make an interesting purchase, but she would never admit to owning it. 

Late one afternoon, while I was sitting at my desk in the Library, Lee stepped in and asked me if I wanted her to do my portrait. I had already taken my break so I declined but she told me she would just do a quick sketch and fill in the details later and that it would only cost me $5.00. I decided she probably needed the money so we both went outside in front of the Art Institute where Lee told me to sit on the balustrade. I had to sit with my left side to her because that was the side with the more prominent dimple. Lee was gaga about dimples. She had a story about falling all over herself in a restaurant to get a better look at a man's dimples. She advised me that if every night I placed a finger in the middle of each cheek and rotated them for five or ten minutes, I would be able to deepen my dimples and enhance my allure. 

After a few minutes she started to arrange her materials and one of the first things she did was to unroll a long painting of a piano keyboard being played by many hands. "What's that for?", I asked. "Inspiration!", she replied. She then firmly grabbed my cheeks between her fingers and started massaging them. "You need a little color in those cheeks!", she said. More than once she had criticized me for my pasty coloring. I had to take my glasses off because Lee wasn't good at rendering those. She sketched me for about ten minutes and then I was allowed to go back inside. When she delivered the portrait the next day it was an excellent (although rather sleazy) variation of her "waiter" portraits. It was a finished drawing with no color and had "Joe Lamb by Lee Godie" written on the right side. I loved it and my usually critical friend Jamie Becker said it was the best drawing he'd seen all year. Unfortunately, it was one of my Godie's that was lost in the mail when I moved from Chicago. I didn't think about it at the time but it was the only male image I ever saw by her. I don't think it was the first because there were rumors about a Marlboro Man portrait, but at that time male portraits were rare.

I think it was in 1979, my last summer in Chicago, that Lee unrolled an incredible profile portrait of Joan Crawford. It was an amazing likeness and looked like it had been copied from one of Joan's 30's portrait photos. Her hair was blowing wildly behind her and she had an alarming predatory smile. I felt that I couldn't live without it and made the unprecedented step of offering Lee $50.00 right off the bat. She didn't understand what I said and I'll never forget her angry reply. "Five dollars for Joan Crawford? I ought to slap your face!" Years later when I saw a TCM promo for the movie "Humoresque" I was struck by the scene where Joan Crawford says to John Garfield "I'd like to slap your face!" Little did I know in 1979 that we were having a "Joan Crawford Moment".

Well, it soon became obvious that fifty dollars wasn't going to buy Joan Crawford. I became unbalanced and decided to do a portrait for Lee that I could add to the cash as a trade. My friend Amy Yoes and I went to an "antique" store, Merle's, way up on North Clark near the Adelphi Theater, and I bought a bunch of cheap cameos and rhinestone brooches. I painted a watercolor portrait on unstretched canvas of a classical face with a long neck and blowing Botticelli hair. I varnished it three or four times with high gloss Damar varnish and stuck all the pins on the dress. I thought Lee could trash the painting and save the pins (because they were "hard to come by!") to stick on her own paintings. When Lee unrolled the painting she looked at it for awhile. "You did this?" she asked. She paused for a moment and said "Well, she has a fine face, but you need to do something about her hair." Oops! 

When I left Chicago in the late 70's Lee told me to write her in care of the museum store. I told her that I would probably be back for a visit in the next year or two and I would track her down. "You won't be back", she said. Sadly, she was right.

Bibliography

Bonesteel, Michael. Artist - Lee Godie : a 20-year retrospective. Chicago : City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, 1993.

Lee Godie", chapter IN: Rosemont, Penelope. Surrealist Experiences : 1001 Dawns, 221 Midnights. Evanston, IL: Black Swan Press, 2000.

Plummer, William. Baglady Artist Lee Godie is a Wacky Success - Her Paintings are Off the Wall and in Demand. People Magazine, April 22, 1985, p.50-52.