Catherine Goodman

Island

13 November – 20 December

New York, 18th Street

Opening Reception

Thursday 13 November, 6 – 8 pm

Dates

13 November – 20 December 2025

Location

New York, 18th Street Directions

Materials

Press Release

Artwork Inquiry

This November, Hauser & Wirth presents its first exhibition dedicated to the prints of noted British artist Catherine Goodman. This body of monotypes named ‘The ULAE Series’ emerged from Goodman’s 2024 residency at Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) on Long Island, marking both her first major exploration of printmaking and an expansion of her aesthetic vocabulary. ‘Much of the new language that was evolving in the prints followed me home to the studio in London and was translated into paint,’ she wrote in reflection of the experience—a cross-pollination made visible in a new painting developed from this period, also on view in this exhibition.

Goodman joins a distinguished lineage of modern and contemporary artists who have expanded their practices through printmaking at ULAE. Among them, Grace Hartigan and Helen Frankenthaler stand out in particular as kindred spirits—artists who, like Goodman, were devoted passionately to daily drawing and guided by instinct. At ULAE, Goodman immersed herself in the unpredictable process of painting on and printing from copper plates. Working intuitively, she built up highly expressive, densely layered compositions, often laying down a black or grey calligraphic mark as starting point. Goodman sometimes carried works in progress home in the evening to adjust with an oil stick, forging an unorthodox dialogue between mediums.

‘Almost everyone I knew in the world was asleep because of the time difference to London, so I spent the evenings alone, drawing into the prints that hadn’t worked out for me that day. It was an extraordinarily intense time navigating my inner landscape, having an opportunity to review my life back home. It seems a time of innocence now.’

Goodman has long centered her practice on portraiture. Religious icons from her childhood left an early mark, and she often mentions seeing portraits even within her abstractions. This oscillation between figuration and abstraction—a constant in ‘The ULAE Series’—relies in part on the artist’s longstanding daily drawing practice, which she cites as the initial means of harnessing her sources of inspiration, which range from natural phenomena to film. One work on view in the exhibition depicts the titular boy from Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie ‘Ivan’s Childhood,’ gazing through a telescope, a dramatic yet intimate image.

Each work, Goodman writes, whether figurative or abstract, is ‘layered with those memories of my time there, the light, urgency and sense of isolation—being cut off from the mainland of our lives while exploring the inner landscape.’

About the Artist

Catherine Goodman

For more than four decades, Catherine Goodman CBE has developed a unique visual language that communicates a powerful visionary response to her lived experience and memory. Goodman’s intensely expressive painting process uses strongly pigmented oil paint, brushwork, oil sticks, drips and washes to create atmospheric and immersive paintings which explore both figuration and abstraction.

Central to Goodman’s artistic process is the act of drawing directly from life, her intimate knowledge of the old master painters and drawing from film, where she immerses in the legends of the modern cinema age. In Goodman’s words, “drawing can bring about a sense of unity and create a portal into other realms of consciousness”. This daily practice roots her mark-making in observation and informs and enriches her paintings.

Catherine Goodman’s role as an educator is integral to her artistic identity. Since graduating from art school, Goodman has been organising drawing classes for the homeless and other community groups, demonstrating a longstanding commitment to social justice in art education. In 2000, this led her to co-establish the Royal Drawing School with HM King Charles III, to address the increasing absence of drawing in art education and to give wider access to disadvantaged students.

Goodman studied at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, London, and the Royal Academy Schools, London, where she won the Royal Academy Gold Medal in 1987. Goodman continues in her role as Founding Artistic Director and Academic Board Member of the Royal Drawing School and in 2014 was awarded Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order, for her services to arts education. Since 2019, Goodman has served as the Artist Trustee at The National Gallery, London. In 2024, she was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to art, UK.

Her paintings are held in significant private and public collections including Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, France; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK; The Green Family Art Foundation, Texas, USA; The National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; The Olivia Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico; The Rothschild Foundation, Waddesdon, UK; The Royal Collection Trust, London, UK.

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