Neil Goodman (born 1953) is an American sculptor and educator, known for bronze works that combine elegant arrangements and forms with hand-wrought, textured surfaces.Yood, James. "Neil Goodman, Struve Gallery," Artforum, November 1990, page 172. Retrieved March 12, 2020.Artner, Alan G. "Neil Goodman’s sculpture receives a mid-career review," Chicago Tribune, November 25, 1997, page 58. Retrieved March 12, 2020.Cassidy, Victor. "Neil Goodman at Klein Art Works," Art in America, May 2004, pages 167–8.Hixson, Kathryn. "Neil Goodman, Chicago Cultural Center, Perimeter Gallery," New Art Examiner, April 1998, page 37. He has explored a wide range of formats—still-life compositions, wall and floor installations, free-standing works and monumental public art—in a formalist style that has evolved from spare representation to abstraction and minimalism.Artner, Alan G. "How the parts relate to the whole," Chicago Tribune, January 18, 2002, Section 7, page 5. Retrieved March 12, 2020.Hawkins, Margaret. "Foreword," Close Proximity: A retrospective of Sculpture by Neil Goodman, Englewood, Colorado: Museum of Outdoor Arts, 2018, pages 18–27.
Goodman's sculpture has been featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago ("Art in Chicago 1945-1995" survey), Indianapolis Museum of Art, Brauer Museum of Art, and Museum of Outdoor Arts (2018).Sacek, Betty. "IUN professors' artwork part of Windy City show," Post Tribune, November 22, 1996, page D5.Cassidy, Victor. "Chicago Report," Artnet, January 16, 1997. Retrieved March 19, 2020.Hertzlieb, Gregg. So Small Between the Stars, So Large Against the Sky: New Works by Neil Goodman, Valparaiso, IL: Brauer Museum of Art, 2016.Museum of Outdoor Arts. Close Proximity: A retrospective of Sculpture by Neil Goodman, Englewood, Colorado: Museum of Outdoor Arts, 2018. He has been awarded public commissions for Chicago's McCormick Place, the Block Museum of Art, Indiana University Northwest, and cities in Connecticut, Indiana and Michigan.Artner, Alan G. "Building on Block," Chicago Tribune, October 8, 2000. Retrieved March 12, 2020.The Block Museum of Art. "Subjects-Objects: Maker, Neil Goodman," Collection. Retrieved March 12, 2020.Proctor, Lina. "Venture of Love," Post Tribune, June 23, 2006, page D1, D3.Sculpture magazine. "Dow Centennial Sculpture Garden," Sculpture, November 2000.Cassidy, Victor. "Neil Goodman: Lines Moving Space," Sculpture, November 2001, pages 16–7. Curator Gregg Hertzlieb describes Goodman's abstract sculptures as "sophisticated explorations of formal issues [that] concurrently pulse with organic life … and appeal to the hand, the eye, and the mind." New Art Examiner editor Kathryn Hixson called him a "sculptor's sculptor" whose "purposeful craftsmanship of ritualistic tableaux and talismanic objects" engages "the sensual shift from two to three dimensions."
After being based in the Chicago area and teaching at Indiana University Northwest for most of his career, Goodman lives and works in the town of Los Alamos on the central coast of California.Santa Ynez Valley News. "Sculptor Neil Goodman on exhibit in Solvang," May 23, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2025.
Early life and career Goodman was born in 1953 in Hammond, Indiana, a steel-mill city outside of Chicago, whose industrial rust-belt landscape remains a key influence.Hersh, Lela. "Neil Goodman," Art in Chicago 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, ed. Lynne Warren, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996, page 255. Retrieved March 12, 2020.Perry, Rachel Berenson. Passages and Portals: Sculpture by Neil Goodman, Indianapolis, Indiane: Indiana State Museum, 2006. His college studies began in philosophy and religion, before he turned to pottery and then sculpture at Indiana University Bloomington (BA, Fine Arts and Religious Studies, 1976).Berry, S.L. "Artist left books behind, took philosophy into sculpture," Indianapolis Star, May 24, 2002. In the late 1970s, he was drawn to working in metal and completed postgraduate studies in sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute (1977) and Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia (MFA, Sculpture and Ceramics, 1979).Smith, Colleen. "Void as Form: An Interview with Neil Goodman," Close Proximity: A retrospective of Sculpture by Neil Goodman, Englewood, Colorado: Museum of Outdoor Arts, 2018, page 38–45. He secured a teaching position at Indiana University Northwest (IUN) in Gary in 1979 as a founding member of the Fine Arts department.Goodman, Neil and Richard Rezac. "Two Top Sculptors Recall their Time in Chi-Town," New Art Examiner, November/December 2018, pages 13–5, 19. Retrieved March 19, 2020. In 1991, he purchased a two-story residential loft building on Chicago's south side that served as his studio and a home for him, his wife, JoEllyn Codespoti Goodman, and their children, Maurice and Hana Goodman, Jenna Wright and Stephen Stults.Kaplan, Kathy. "All in the Family," Chicago Tribune, September 20, 1998. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
Goodman emerged in the Chicago art scene with a two-person exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center in 1980,Forwalter, John. "Sculpture at Library is top-notch," Post-Tribune, October 1980. group shows at the Illinois State Museum and Dart, Struve, Roy Boyd and Randolph Street galleries,Artner, Alan G. "Dart Gallery offers contemporary view of still life’s, human form," Chicago Tribune, April 30, 1982.MacNamara, Peggy. "Goodman, Neri, Silverman," New Art Examiner, May 1983.Palmer, Lori. "Struve Gallery Exhibition," New Art Examiner, May 1986.Smallwood, Lyn. "National Sculpture Review," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 10, 1987. and solo shows at Frumkin & Struve Gallery (his first in Chicago) and the Indianapolis Center alumni for Contemporary Art, among others.Holg, Garrett. "Neil Goodman at the Struve Gallery," New Art Examiner, November 1988, page 40.Indianapolis Center for Contemporary Art. Julia Fish | Neil Goodman, Indianapolis, Indiana: Indianapolis Center for Contemporary Art, 1989. His later exhibitions include mid-career surveys at the Chicago Cultural Center (1997) and Indiana State Museum (2006),Holg, Garrett. "Neil Goodman Perimeter Gallery/Chicago Cultural Center," ARTnews, February 1998.Sculpture magazine. "Portals & Passages, Indiana State Museum," Sculpture, July–August 2006. a retrospective at the Museum of Outdoor Arts (2018), and solos at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art (1994), Brauer Museum of Art (2016), and Perimeter, Klein and Carl Hammer galleries in Chicago.MacMillan, Kyle. "Summer accompanied by a variety of shows," Sunday World Herald (Omaha), July 3, 1994.Yood, James. "Neil Goodman at the Perimeter Gallery," Art Ltd, November/December 2014.Thorn, Bruce. "Neil Goodman: 'Twists & Turns,'" New Art Examiner, January–February 2018. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
Since 2017, Goodman has been an Emeritus Professor of Fine Arts at IUN, after nearly four decades there teaching and serving as department chair (1998–2001, 2007–11).Kullerstrand, Marge. "IUN’s New Jewel," The Times, June 23, 2006, page A1, A11.
Work and reception
Goodman's career is noted for its consistent modernist formal vocabulary, which has evolved through nuanced but significant experimentation from representation and narrative toward abstraction and minimalism;Paglia, Michael. "Neil Goodman Retrospective Gets Back to Basics," Westword, September 27, 2018. Retrieved March 12, 2020. he cites Giacometti and Brâncuși as important touchstones.Artner, Alan G. "At the Galleries: Neil Goodman," Chicago Tribune, September 29, 1988, Section 5, page 9. Retrieved March 12, 2020. His work—primarily in bronze—is unified by: a visual grammar that emphasizes balance and strong lines; a workmanlike mastery of technique and craft, including casting and painstaking hand-finished surfaces; an emphasis on presentation and the relationship of sculpture to various spaces (pedestals, walls, floors, galleries, outdoors); and contrasts between industrial, architectural and geometric forms and natural-organic elements and textures.Yood, James. Julia Fish | Neil Goodman, Indianapolis, Indiana: Indianapolis Center for Contemporary Art, 1989.Artner, Alan G. "Neil Goodman at Perimeter Gallery," Chicago Tribune, November 25, 2005, Section 7, page 19. James Yood and Alan Artner, among others, note his sensitivity to bronze—its patina, luster, and malleability—which follows in the tradition of masters such as Henry Moore, Marini, Maillol and Giacometti.Berger, Phillip. "Neil Goodman: 'Portals & Passages'," Time Out, December 15, 2005.
Early work (1979–1993) Goodman's early sculpture combines representation and abstraction, oblique narrative, and an almost archaeological concern with objects and the passage of time.Scarborough, James. "Neil Goodman, Subjects-Objects and the Devaluation of the Constructivist Imperative," Neil Goodman, Subjects-Objects, Norman, Oklahoma: Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 1994.Luecking, Steve. "Extensions: Neil Goodman and the Patterns of Space," Neil Goodman | Sculpture, Elgin, Illinois: Elgin Community College/Indiana University/Perimeter Gallery, 2005. Formally, it defies sculptural convention, interpreting painterly strategies, such as the still life and frontal, single-plane presentation, in bronze.Artner, Alan G. "Skill, precision of detail energize Goodman’s work," Chicago Tribune, April 26, 1991, page 41. Critics identify painters Pierre Chardin and Giorgio Morandi as key influences, while also relating the bio-abstraction of Arp, Brancusi, Isamu Noguchi and Yves Tanguy and the vitalist sculpture of Moore and Barbara Hepworth.Artner, Alan G. "Small bronzes a step forward for Goodman," Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1990, pages 46–7.
Goodman first gained attention for intimate, low-lying still lifes that bring together disparate artifacts and architectural elements in elegant familiar tableaux suggesting dinner settings or shelf arrangements (e.g., Still Life with Catfish, 1979; Still Life #1, 1988).Haydon Harold. "Still life cast in bronze at Frumkin-Struve show," Chicago Sun-Times, February 12, 1982. ARTnews critic Garrett Holg writes that the combinations of common, man-made objects (rods, bowls, glasses, forks) and droll castings of temporal organic forms (vegetables, fish) formed "a profoundly eloquent discourse on the still life." James Yood wrote that Goodman's "isolated and huddled" objects and pitted and scumbled surfaces convey hard-won existence and anonymous heroism with a "majesty and quality of restraint reminiscent of Chardin."
Goodman's imposing, freestanding "Cage" works have been likened to open-backed reliefs resembling altarpieces, which use thin, vertical architectonic frameworks to define and section interior spaces into platforms and compartments for the display of abstract and representational (bowls, fish, implements) forms. Critics highlight the series' complex interrelationships and compositional variety, which ranges from near-screens of hieroglyphic-like screens (Triptych, 1988) to delicate, shadow-box-like balances of fluid, multi-dimensional space (Cyclades, 1986; Cage #4, 1988). Goodman's "Bellingham Series" (1990) offers "mini-assemblages" of reinvented nautical tools and other forms, whose significance rely less on symbolism than on sensitive, asymmetrical compositions (e.g., Ledge and Prop) that hint at Cubist-like fragmentation.
Wall and floor groupings (1994– )