Oscar Goodall RSW
An Exhibition of Paintings
from the 1950s to the 1980s
“Most of my work starts with enthusiasm and a few brush strokes”
Oscar Goodall was born in Australia in 1924 and moved to Perthshire as a child. He graduated from Dundee College of Art and Hospital-field with a Diploma in Drawing and Painting, but only after serving in the RAFVR as aircrew from 1942 until the end of the war. As a natural rebel, and being very expressive, Oscar later became president of the students’ union of the college and joined CND.
Since then, his life has been dedicated to his art. He initially designed cinema posters and painted theatre scenery, then worked as an art teacher at school camps for underprivileged children, then at various teaching posts and finally as principal teacher at Glenrothes. During this time, he also worked as a lecturer for the Arts Council until a heart attack forced his retirement.
Undisturbed by this, Oscar has continued to paint and has often exhibited at most of the major Scottish shows, including the RSA, RSW and SSA and held group and solo exhibitions throughout the UK and abroad. In 1986, he was elected as a Member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours (RSW).
Oscar enjoys experimenting and perfecting his art. His style and technique have changed over the sixty years he has been working at his chosen profession. His paintbrush has seen many variations, from the life painting and still life studies of his college years, through abstractation, expressionism, realism and back again, with the increasing realisation that they are all part of art. Oscar was painting at a time when exhibitions were graced by such eminent names as: J D Macgregor, W G Gillies, Ian Flemming, David McLure, Anne Redpath, W MacTaggart, C Pulsford and J McIntosh Patrick, to name but a few. He knew them all personally and showed alongside them at many exhibitions. His work has graced the walls of many a prestigious gallery in Scotland, the rest of the UK and abroad.
“I paint landscapes because of a need to share my reverence for what surrounds 90% of people - sky, water, land, the seasons and change. I do not live in New York, London or Berlin. I exist in an increasingly polluted green landscape, which deserves to be recorded, as do the skills required to capture it. Those skills and techniques have, like nature itself, to change and to fit the content and subject. To choose subjects which fit the skills merely leads to stylistic boredom.
We live in a complex world. Most of my work starts with enthusiasm and a few brush strokes. An empty canvas is like a child, full of infinite promise. The picture develops in an organic way, one brushstroke in relation to the previous marks. On occasion, something seems to happen and a momentum takes over, time becomes meaningless, inertia and thinking in terms of logic cease to exist. Self is gone.”
A quiet and thoughtful man, Oscar will not brag about his success, though it has been considerable, and his work is sought after by collectors both at home and abroad.