Michael Godfrey

Evening Glow Arriving Soon	Autumn Light	Shenandoah Spring
Autumn's Blaze	Farm	April into May
Marsh Colors	The Verdant Earth	Shanandoah Valley
Farm in the Valley	Creek Light	Spring Hues

Morning Near Jeremiah Run

Michael Godfrey is a representational landscape artist whose work hangs in many private and corporate collections. Born in Germany in l958 and raised in North Carolina, he earned a BA in Fine Arts and began his painting career in oils and watercolors. He spends hours field sketching and photographing, preparing for a well thought out painting.

Typically, he starts a major work using small oil studies done on location. These field studies provide color accuracy and photographs provide special details. Godfrey composes his paintings from on site sketches in the field and photography references. In studio, work progresses in successive layers of paint and light is orchestrated to create a painting that appeals to his internal sense of order.

"A landscape artist has to have some knowledge of many disciplines (geology, chemistry, physics, architecture), to understand the world in which they are trying to create. An artist must observe with the idea that what is observed must be interpreted and distilled. For a landscape artist, it is just as important what you do not include in a work as what is eventually laid down. I ask myself, what is the dominant truth - is it color, shape of land forms, or time of day? I try to get an understanding of what I am seeing, so that the final work will capture the visual emotion."

Awards

2010 Best in Show, Rock Mountain Plein Air Painters National Exhibit
2007 Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art Quest for the West Palette Award
1998 Bronze Medal - Yellowstone National Park Purchase Award
1996 Landscape Award - Arts for the Parks

Select Shows

Booth Museum of Western Art 2008
Qwest for the West Invitational 2007
Jackson Hole Art Auction 2007
Altermann Art Auction 2006
Sea to Shining Sea Invitational 2004
Peppertree Invitational 1995-2008
Arts for the Parks Top 100 - 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96
Gene Autry Museum - Annual Classic American Western Art Show 1995
CM Russell Auction 2005-2009
National Wildlife Museum Miniatures Show 1998-2008

Select Publications

Books: Art from the Parks - Rachel Rubin Wolf; From Sea to Shining Sea

Magazines:

Art of the West, feature article May/June, 2010
Western Art Collector - February 2008, pgs 159,160,164, and 165
Western Art Collector - November 2007, pgs 170, 174
American Art Collector - April 2006, pgs 214, 215
American Artist - September 1998, Cover story