Bertram Goodman (1904-1988)

Goodman Working on "Evolution of the Book" (1936)

Biography

Bertram Goodman was born in New York, NY in 1904. He studied art first at New York's School of American Sculpture in the years 1923-1924. The School had been founded by Solon Borglum in 1918. After Borglum's death in 1922, management of the School was taken over by a committee of governors, one of whom was Mahonri MacKintosh Young, who became Goodman's mentor. Young was a sculptor noted for his spontaneity and associated with the Ashcan school. Goodman also spent a year at the Art Students League, where Thomas Hart Benton taught from approximately 1926-1935.

Goodman completed two murals. His first, entitled "Evolution of the Book," (1036) was commissioned by the New York City Schools for the Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx. His second mural, "Quaker Settlers," (1938) was for the Quakertown, PA Post Office. In later years Goodman continued to be very productive, making lithographs, oils and watercolors.

Workmen (1936)
Newspapermen

Critical Analysis

Goodman was known for his figure, genre and townscape painting. His work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Butler Art Institute and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Goodman's work was recognized with several prizes. Art dealers mention his First Prize for a watercolor (1946) awarded by the Screen Publicists Guild, a Purchase Prize (1947) from the Abraham Lincoln Gallery, and the Joe and Emily Lowe Prize (1956). Goodman served as Director of the Artists Equity Association from 1955-1956. He died in Fort Lauderdale, FL in 1988.

Goodman's first mural - for the Theodore Roosevelt High School (1936) - is a very strong composition. His lithograph "Workmen" of the same year shares much of this feeling. The composition of his Quakertown Post Office mural is busier and somewhat less compelling. His works in later life became looser and more colorful, sometimes to the point of being a little garish. His themes moved from working men in the 1930s to party life in the 1950s and finally to erotica toward the end of his life.

Murals

References

  1. Bertram Goodman (Wikipedia).
  2. Bertram Goodman (Public Art in the Bronx).
  3. Bertram Goodman (1904-1988) (ask ART).
  4. Bertram Goodman Sold at Auction Prices (invaluable).
  5. Bertram Goodman, ca. 1939 (Archives of American Art).
  6. Sarah Bean Apmann, Bertram Goodman’s Views of the Village, Off the Grid January 11 (2021).