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 the National Portrait Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, The Rothschild Foundation, and the Royal Collection Trust.