Godwin was a cousin of Virginia Governor Mills E. Godwin, Jr. During the 1950s she embraced the Zen idea, living with few objects in a modest apartment in Greenwich Village. During the 1950s and 1960s she took on jobs restoring houses and working as an apprentice to a plasterer and mason, as well as some interior design work and fabric design. In 1963 Godwin purchased a brownstone in Greenwich Village previously owned by Franz Kline. During the 1980s she picketed against an annual furriers convention in New York. Collections Museum of Modern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art Virginia Museum of Fine Arts San Francisco Museum of Modern Art National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chicago Art Institute Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Utah Museum of Fine Arts Yale University Art Gallery Milwaukee Art Center National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, South Wales National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC North Carolina Museum of Art Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Gannett Center, Columbia University, NY Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Mount Holyoke, MA Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE Ulrich Museum, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC Vassar College Museum, Poughkeepsie, NY Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA General Electric Company, New York The Hyde Collection, Glenn Falls, New York JPMorgan Chase, New York McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas Sovran Bank, Richmond, Virginia Suffolk Museum of Art, Virginia United States Navy Y.M.C.A., Norfolk, Virginia United Virginia Bank, Richmond, Virginia Exhibitions 1950 Mountcastle's, Suffolk, VA 1951 Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, Irene Leache Memorial, Norfolk, VA 1952 Abingdon Square Painters, New York City 1951–53 Group shows at the Valentine Museum and Linden Gallery, Richmond, VA 1953 Group show, Provincetown Art Association 1954 "An Environment of Expression", Theatre-Go-Round, Virginia Beach, VA 1954 Group show, Virginia Intermont College, Bristol, VA 1958 Stable Gallery Invitational Show, New York City 1958 Group Show, Betty Parsons, Section Eleven, New York City 1959 Group Show, Betty Parsons, Section Eleven, New York City 1959 Solo Show, Betty Parsons, Section Eleven, New