Catherine Goodman & Lynne Tillman on ‘Catherine Goodman. Silent Music’

Celebrating the opening weekend of ‘Catherine Goodman. Silent Music’ at Hauser & Wirth 22nd Street, and the new release of the monograph ‘Catherine Goodman’ from Hauser & Wirth Publishers, please join us for an afternoon conversation with artist Catherine Goodman and writer Lynne Tillman. 

‘Catherine Goodman. Silent Music’ presents a series of new, large-scale paintings by the British artist, where her characteristically expressive brushwork yields animated surfaces that pulse with the dynamic energy of their making. For Goodman, the studio is a place of spiritual meditation. Each painting represents an act of intimate transmutation—a way for her to turn closely held memories and personal vulnerabilities into newfound stability.

‘Catherine Goodman’ is a richly illustrated publication focused on Goodman’s recent paintings. Featuring an illuminating essay by writer and curator Jennifer Higgie, alongside revealing reflections from Goodman herself, this volume sheds light on how drawing and painting are inextricably intertwined in her deeply intuitive practice. Copies will be for sale at the event. 

Following the conversation there will be a book signing with both Catherine and Lynne. 

 This event is free; however, reservations are required.   

About 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 Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, France; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK; The Green Family Art Foundation, Texas, USA; The National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; The Olivia Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico; The Rothschild Foundation, Waddesdon, UK; The Royal Collection Trust, London, UK.

About Lynne Tillman  
Lynne Tillman's novels include Haunted Houses; No Lease on Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction; American Genius, A Comedy, and Men and Apparitions, nominated for a Republic of Consciousness Prize (UK, 2021). Her short fiction books include SOMEDAY THIS WILL BE FUNNY and THIS IS NOT IT; nonfiction books include The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965–67, with photographs by Stephen Shore and What Would Lynne Tillman Do?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Tillman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship; a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and was awarded the Katherine Anne Porter Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2025, Soft Skull Press will publish her selected stories, Thrilled to Death; in 2026, Zwirner Press will publish a collection of Tillman’s essays on art and culture. 

Host or Publisher Hauser & Wirth New York