Catherine Goodman


Catherine Anne Goodman LVO is an English artist.

Biography

Goodman was born in London in 1961. She studied at Queen's College, London from 1972 to 1979 and Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London from 1979 to 1984, followed by the Royal Academy Schools, London from 1984 to 1987. She won the Royal Academy Gold Medal in 1987, and the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 2002.
Goodman's first solo exhibition was at Cadogan Contemporary Fine Art in London in 1988, with a further three exhibitions there in 1990, 1992 and 1995. She had a solo show at Theo Waddington Fine Art, London in 1997, and took part in a two-person show at Marlborough Fine Art, London, in 2004, with David Dawson
In 2006 she was invited to take part in the exhibition Drawing Inspiration, a survey of contemporary drawing in art at the Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. She then staged a solo exhibition at Marlborough Fine Art, London, in 2008.
In 2008 she was also asked to judge Hung, Quartered and Drawn! a drawing competition at the Tower of London in London.
Goodman is well known on the London art scene as the Artistic Director of The Prince's Drawing School an independent charitable art school in London's east end. She lives in London and is represented by Marlborough Fine Art in London.
She was appointed Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to The Prince's Drawing School.

Style and Influences

Goodman's paintings are figurative, in the School of London tradition, showing a strong emphasis on drawing and the physicality of paint. Her subject matter includes portraits, but also interior scenes and city landscapes. Writing on Goodman's winning entry for the 2002 BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, a portrait of Father Antony Sutch, Headmaster of Downside School in Somerset, Elizabeth Grice described it as having, 'the quiet authority of an icon'. The portrait took two years to paint, and is typical of Goodman's methodical way of working. In her own words she is a fast painter, she spends 'a very long time on my pictures and I destroy a fair amount.'
As well as working directly from life Goodman will work from photographs, but she is an artist who places a great deal of emphasis on drawing skills. She has described this as an essential part of art, as the means for "recreating from life a three-dimensional reality on a two-dimension space.".