Catherine Goodman

Hauser & Wirth Somerset is delighted to welcome London based painter Catherine Goodman as artist-in-residence from January – May 2018. Although Goodman is known for her portraits, her practice includes expressionistic landscapes, vigorous sketches and experimental collages; central to her process is the act of drawing from observation, whether from life, objects or the great masters and their works.

Goodman trained at London’s Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, and the Royal Academy Schools, at which she won the Royal Academy Gold Medal in 1987. Her painting of Antony Sutch won First Prize in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 2002, following which the National Portrait Gallery commissioned Goodman’s painting of Dame Cicely Saunders, for its collection. In 2014 Goodman had a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, titled Portraits from Life. The National Portrait Gallery acquired her portrait of film director Stephen Frears from this exhibition the following year, for its 20th Century Collection.

Goodman has a longstanding academic interest in artists’ development, which led to a strong concern about the increasing absence of observational drawing programmes in contemporary studies. To address this gap in art education, in 2000, Goodman co-founded the Royal Drawing School with HRH The Prince of Wales. She continues in her role as Artistic Director and Academic Board Member and has been a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order since 2014, for her services to the school.