Caroline Goe

works from the collection of Lynne Tillman

March 16–May 4, 2019

Nine small paintings installed on white walls in a gallery. The walls are white, with gray painted rectangles that frame each painting.

Caroline Goe, installation view, 2019

Three paintings installed on a white wall. All utilize expressive brush strokes and are Untitled.

Caroline Goe, installation view, 2019

Five paintings installed on adjacent walls. The walls are white, with gray painted rectangles that frame each painting.

Caroline Goe, installation view, 2019

A painting depicting two figures surrounded by a yellow glow. The figure on the left holds a candle and wraps her other arm around the figure on the right, whose face is covered with orange. There is a cross to the left.

Caroline Goe

Untitled, n. d. (c. 1970s/1980s)

Mixed media on canvas board

6 × 8 in

Caroline Goe

Untitled, n. d. (c. 1970s/1980s)

Mixed media on fabric laid on paper

7 × 12 in

A painting depicting a bouquet of pink flowers with light green leaves in a short, round purple vase. The background is dark umber.

Caroline Goe

Untitled, n. d. (c. 1970s/1980s)

Mixed media on paper

8.5 × 10.75 in

A painting depicting two people sitting across from each other at a small table. Above them a painting of a bird and a painting of a woman praying hang on the wall.

Caroline Goe

Untitled, n. d. (c. 1970s/1980s)

Mixed media on canvas

10 × 12.5 in

A painting depicting a person standing in a garden, holding a shrub or plant. They wear a white religious habit with crosses on it. To either side of them there is a tree.

Caroline Goe

Untitled, n. d. (c. 1970s/1980s)

Mixed media on paper

11 × 17 in

Press Release

White Columns is proud to announce a solo exhibition of works by Caroline Goe drawn from the personal collection of the New York-based writer Lynne Tillman.

Almost nothing is known about Caroline Goe’s life (or indeed whether she is still alive.) What is known is that Goe sold her paintings on the streets of New York’s East Village in the 1980’s, and that her work attracted the attention of a number artists and writers including Lynne Tillman, Chris Martin, and Robin Winters, among others. This exhibition – we believe the first ever dedicated to Goe’s work – comprises all of the paintings that Tillman acquired from the artist from the mid-1980’s to the early 1990’s. About her encounters with Goe and her work, Tillman writes:

“In the mid 1980’s, a woman was selling her paintings on the street, and I’m thinking it was Third Ave near 9th Street, around the corner from St Marks Bookstore. That’s my memory of it, but it might have been on Second Ave. Time pranks memory.

Carolyn Gee, I thought her name was. I’ve now learned it was Caroline Goe. She signed her name “CG.” CG was a small woman, with blondish hair. She might have been seated on a small chair, or on a blanket, but in memory I see her seated. CG was dignified and didn’t talk except to tell you how much a work was.

CG sold her paintings for a dollar or two. Some paintings were on paper, on silky, gauzy fabric, some on canvas, some were fabric glued onto paper. The canvases weren’t stretched, they were not the usual sizes or shapes, some were cut from other canvases, I thought.

CG’s paintings are figurative, and very colorful. Vivid colors, mostly: reds, purples, blues, yellow, in one a lovely light green. She used black as a background for white. She liked crosses. She was ecumenical, too, and painted Jewish stars, also. Often her paintings are of religious figures. Nuns are a favorite subject, and God or Jesus. I thought her work was about communication of different types, spiritual and actual, and about spirit itself.

CG liked painting costumes, a nun’s habit, other ceremonial dresses. Her work is upbeat, happy, and I bought quite a number of them. I think I lost a couple, I’m not sure. I particularly love the painting of two women at a table, with two paintings on the wall. Now I’ve learned other artists collected her also.

Caroline Goe disappeared in the 1990’s, I believe. Suddenly she was no longer at her post. Curiously, I never spoke to her, and usually I do make conversation with people I have some truck with. Maybe we didn’t speak, because she didn’t encourage that. And I didn’t want to importune her. I wish, back then, I had learned about her, from her.” – Lynne Tillman, March 2019.

White Columns would like to thank Lynne Tillman for her enthusiasm for this project. Our hope is that it acts as a catalyst for subsequent research and, perhaps, future exhibitions of Goe’s art.

Lynne Tillman is a writer based in New York. Her latest novel Men and Apparitions was published in 2018 by Soft Skull Press. Most recently, a new edition of her 2006 novel American Genius, A Comedy was published by Soft Skull Press (February 2019.)