LONDON.- The Coach House Gallery at Waddesdon is now opening our major summer exhibition of paintings and drawings by the celebrated British artist Catherine Goodman (b.1961). Displayed in the Coach House Gallery and the Drawings Room of the Manor, the exhibition focuses on a new body of work exhibited for the first time at Waddesdon.
At the Coach House Gallery, the centrepiece of the exhibition will be a monumental Frieze, of seven canvases, depicting a grove of ancient olive trees framed by the vivid blues of the sea and sky behind. It will be complemented by a triptych of a single tree captured through the day – morning, midday and evening – as well as further paintings and a suite of powerful pastel drawings.
The site of these trees is an isolated point on the Greek Island of Corfu, which the artist has been visiting regularly for over twelve years and a place with close connections to the Rothschild family. Goodman’s artworks capture the landscape of Corfu and its rugged, vibrant beauty, and the individual characters of the olive trees themselves. These paintings and drawings are, in a very real sense, portraits, as Goodman brings all her powers of human observation to bear on the rendering of these ancient natural forms.
Catherine Goodman’s art is rooted in observational drawing. Through this daily act, the artist examines and places her personal experience in an intense relationship with the natural environment. As a result, her paintings are charged with colour and gesture to create deeply atmospheric and engaging experiences for the viewer.
One of the inspirations for the paintings, and particularly the seven-panelled Frieze is Ovid’s great poem, Metamorphoses, specifically the legend of the nymph Daphne, extracts from which are hand-scribed by the artist on the wall above the paintings. The mythological imagery in this poem, and Daphne’s transformation into a tree to escape Apollo’s pursuit, is a recurring theme for the artist. It further emphasises the sense of the landscapes and trees offering a refuge in a constantly shifting world. Goodman is using a new translation from the Latin of the original text by the poet Alice Oswald, which has been specially commissioned for this exhibition. Oswald’s writing is a continuous source of inspiration for Goodman.
Catherine Goodman says “These works are an exploration of the relationship I have formed with a piece of nature, a landscape that I have got to know intimately over many years. When I visit the olive grove now, I have the sense of the landscape knowing me as well as I know it, I sense the trees looking back at me as I look at them and my drawing is a silent dialogue between us.”
She adds “This work is also a microcosm that asks bigger questions about notions of change and the anxiety we all have for the frailty of the planet and how we address that. To me, this part of Corfu is like a wild garden, that is protected and loved with little or no interventions, and that gives me hope for the future.”
In the Drawings Room of the Manor there will be a complementary display of pastel on paper drawings, all made in situ in the same olive grove in Corfu. Displayed with them will be a selection of Bleu Céleste Sèvres porcelain from the Waddesdon collection. The Manor is famous for its ceramics and on her many visits, Goodman became fascinated with the colour of some of the finest pieces of the collection and the way it connects to the intense natural colours of the sea and sky depicted in her work. Bleu Céleste – or ‘heavenly blue’ - was invented by Jean Hellot, the primary chemist at Sèvres, for the first dining service ordered by King Louis XV (1753). This brilliant shade was difficult to produce and use, so therefore the most expensive and coveted.
Lord Rothschild says “I am immensely proud that Catherine, one of the leading artists of her generation and a long-standing friend of my family, has chosen Waddesdon for her first major public exhibition of landscape paintings, and that the subject should be one so close to our hearts. The island of Corfu has a deep and long-lasting personal connection for us, thanks to my mother, Barbara Hutchinson and my stepfather, the Greek sculptor and artist Niko Ghika. They made a retreat there from 1969 in a house amongst the olive groves so sensitively and powerfully depicted in these paintings. For me, they evoke the beauty and timelessness of the island and its trees, a serene counterpoint to an increasingly turbulent world. I hope that visitors to the exhibition will share a sense of this, and the importance of place to us all.”
Pippa Shirley, Director of Waddesdon says “There can be few artists working today for whom landscape holds such an intense and personal connection as Catherine Goodman. In this work, she creates extraordinary visual encounters with trees that become more characters - old friends - than natural forms. She imbues them with meanings and personalities, reflecting back to us our responses to and relationships with the natural world. As with all meaningful relationships, the work is complex, layered, powerful, thoughtful and invites close looking. The exhibition provides a moment of stillness and immersion as we are drawn into a world at once familiar and different, and a contemporary reminder of a potent ancient myth.”
Catherine Goodman (b. 1961) is an artist based in London, working between her London studios and Somerset. Goodman is represented by Hauser & Wirth Gallery.
She 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 Gallery commissioned her painting of Dame Cicely Saunders for its collection. She has had numerous solo exhibitions including Portraits from Life at the National Portrait Gallery in 2014 and the last house in the world at Marlborough Fine Art London in 2016; in 2019 she exhibited at Hauser & Wirth Somerset following five months as Artist in Residence, and at Marlborough Gallery New York with her solo exhibition, the light gets in. Goodman’s paintings are held in numerous private and public collections including the National Portrait Gallery, which acquired her portrait of film director Stephen Frears for its 20th Century Collection, the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge and the Royal Collection Trust.
Central to her artistic process is the act of drawing from observation, whether from life, objects or the great masters and their works. Goodman sees her role as an educator as being integral to her artistic identity and in 2000 she co-established the Royal Drawing School with HRH The Prince of Wales, to address the increasing absence of observational drawing in art education. She has a longstanding interest in artists’ development and education, as well as the importance of drawing skills to underpin creative practice, both in fine art disciplines and more broadly in the creative industries. She continues in her role as Founding Artistic Director and Academic Board Member and has been a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order since 2014, for her services to the School.
Waddesdon Manor was built from 1874 by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the style of a French early 16th-century château. Ferdinand was an inspired collector, and the house was designed to showcase his exceptional collection of English portraits, French 18th-century furniture, Sèvres porcelain, and other decorative arts. When he died in 1898, he left Waddesdon to his sister, Alice. Upon her death, the house passed to her great-nephew, James de Rothschild, who inherited a substantial part of his father, Baron Edmond’s great collection. In 1957, to ensure its future in perpetuity, Waddesdon was bequeathed to the National Trust. The Rothschild family continues to run the property through a family charitable trust under the leadership of Lord Rothschild.
