"Illusion and allusion are meaningful words for me in the sense that in my work there's an illusion of something real, but there's also an allusion to something intangible."
- Eileen Goodman
Bearded Iris, 12.25" x 10.5", Watercolor
Eileen Goodman (1937 - ) never thought she would be a painter. Growing up in Montclair, NJ, she always drew a lot but was “pretty naive about painting.” Choosing illustration as a career, she attended what was then called the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), which didn’t even have a major in painting. However, the faculty included a few serious painters (Morris Berd, Larry Day, Paul Keene, Jerome Kaplan, and fellow student and former husband Sidney Goodman), whose independent artistic expression suggested other paths. After a brief period developing a portfolio of commercial work, she followed in their creative footsteps.
Putting down roots in Philadelphia, Goodman joined an art community in a city with an artistic legacy reaching back to our nation’s earliest days. Established in the early nineteenth century in this city, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts nourished a tradition of uniquely American realism, defined by such notables as the Peale family, Thomas Eakins, and The Eight. Today realism is as much a part of Philly as the Liberty Bell, cheese steak, doo-wop, and Rocky.
Experimenting with smaller watercolor versions of her oil paintings, Goodman was attracted to the work of Pennsylvania modernist Charles Demuth, who is well-represented in the Barnes Foundation collection in suburban Philadelphia. Perhaps she recognized a similar sensibility in the watercolors of an artist who had exceeded the boundaries of illustration. Vividly direct, Demuth combined a facility to describe form through outline with exuburant gesture and saturated color.
Eventually Goodman’s work in watercolor became dominant. In the early 90s, she painted a number of pieces measuring five feet across, a scale more commonly afforded oil paintings. Foregoing oils altogether, she found ways to make watercolor achieve astonishingly unexpected effects of tonality and texture. As with Demuth, properties which render and make real are energized by looseness in the brushwork and layering of color.
Goodman does not have an agenda when she begins a painting. In other words, she sets out with no pre-conceived message, emotional perspective, or point of view that she wishes to convey. Instead she is drawn to the formal relationships between arranged objects that she sets up and photographs; she focuses on composition and the play of light as it touches the surfaces of the objects. Meaning and interpretation, for Goodman, evolve in the mind of the viewer.
Clustered Fruit And Sunflowers, 41" x 29", Watercolor
Eileen Goodman's watercolors are captivating. In the unforgiving medium of watercolor, she captures the beauty of intense light and color through the subject of still life. Patterns and shapes dance across her sheets of paper and reveal the artist's life-earned intimacy with what could be considered the most challenging medium. Her understated mastery belies the artist's appreciation and fascination with the craft of making art and the inspirational power of nature.
Goodman combines fruits and flowers with patterned rugs and textiles, rhyming found structure with an imposed order. She invites the viewers to engage her subjects and call to their minds memories of cherries, pomegranates, and lilies. At other times, Goodman heightens the drama in ordinary moments. She looks deep into the shadows created by the form of her objects and finds within these shadowy regions the "dark side of beauty."
Goodman discovers the tone and mood found within her subjects. With the rhythm of moving and drying water inherent in the watercolor medium, the need for quick actions and patient responses allows the artist to be both impulsive and reflective. Goodman's works call attention to the moment at hand, recall the past moments overlooked, and change the way the viewer will see every cherry in the future.
Roses In Front, 20.75" x 29", Watercolor
Roses In Front, 20.75" x 29", Watercolor
Eileen Goodman received her BFA from the University of the Arts (previously the Philadelphia College of Art) and attended Temple University. Her works are included in numerous private, corporate, and public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Woodmere Art Museum where she was recently featured in a 2016 retrospective, "The Weight of Watercolor". Goodman has been represented for over thirty years by Gross McCleaf Gallery.
Women have been the cornerstone of operations and exhibitions at Gross McCleaf since Estelle Shane Gross opened her gallery in 1970 on the second floor of 1713 Walnut Street. Over 50 years later, Gross McCleaf is commemorating its rich history during (re)Focus 2024, a citywide festival celebrating women-identified and BIPOC artists.
Fortitude at 50: A Resilient Five Decades at Gross McCleaf Gallery features Martha Armstrong, Jan Baltzell, Joan Becker, Elizabeth Geiger, Eileen Goodman, Penelope Harris, Heidi Leitzke, Bertha Leonard, Ying Li, Ann Lofquist, Chelsey Luster, Bethann Parker, Nicole Parker, Jane Piper, Kimi Pryor, Mary Putman, Celia Reisman, Val Rossman, Mickayel Thurin, Leigh Werrell, and Lauren Whearty with self-portraits, dreamy narratives and formally complex still-life and landscape paintings. The works suggest a deep reflection of the self and a strong point of view conveyed through their distinct subjects and styles. The exhibition represents women artists in all stages of their careers who have helped shape the Gross McCleaf legacy and brand focus toward what Sharon Ewing, former owner and director, refers to as “painterly realism” – representation in painted form.
“I believe artists must make space for pleasure in painting, both in the act of painting and in the pleasure of viewing it.”
-Lauren Whearty
In her first solo exhibition with Gross McCleaf Gallery, titled Painter’s Table, Lauren Whearty celebrates cheerful color and playful patterns in a contemporary take on the artistic tradition of still life painting. With a keen eye for possibilities within this genre, Whearty embraces a feminist perspective, using everyday objects as building blocks to create her own distinctive universe. Each item she incorporates becomes a referential exploration of art history and the process of image creation, adding depth and meaning to her work.
Elizabeth Johnson: The Woodmere Art Museum catalogue, “The Weight of Watercolor: The Art of Eileen Goodman,” includes an early oil painting called Woman (1963-64) that uses dark shadows to model the figure and simplify the background as a mystery. Peter Paone asks, “Why did you decide to shift to painting still lifes”? As your answer you mention being at home with your daughter as a factor, and later, selecting objects for drama and relishing shadows in still life. Is it possible that the mystery of shadow replaced the figure in your case? And could you have been paving your own path against the trend of figure painting dominated by male painters in that era?
Eileen Goodman: Woman was probably influenced by my love of Diebenkorn’s figurative work, which included objects as well. I still think it’s one of my best paintings, and I did do some other figures for maybe a decade or so. I always did a lot of figure drawing...
“The shadows are everything, imbuing unexpected meaning. They are unplanned, undefined, but dependent upon the viewer emotionally or psychologically. Shadows hide and reveal, form emerges and disappears.”
-Eileen Goodman
In her latest solo exhibition, Into Light, Eileen Goodman’s watercolor facility is on bold display. Since her transition away from oil paint in the late ’80s, Goodman has skillfully tamed this temperamental, aqueous media for use in her abundant, large-scale still life paintings. When creating work, she is focused on the basic components of observation, color, light, and shadow. It is only upon reflection, after deep shadows have defined their purpose, that possible interpretations come to light.
