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| Mel Gooding | |
|---|---|
| Name | Mel Gooding |
| Birth date | 1940s |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Art Criticism |
| Notable works | "Still Lives", "London Fields Studies", "Portrait Series" |
| Awards | Turner Prize (nominee), John Moores Painting Prize (shortlist) |
Mel Gooding
Mel Gooding is a British painter, printmaker, teacher, and critic noted for large-scale figurative works, observational drawings, and sustained engagement with London urban life. His practice interweaves portraiture, landscape, and still life, and he has been active in exhibitions, teaching posts, and writing for art journals and newspapers. Gooding’s work is associated with contemporary figurative painting movements and dialogues with artists across Britain and Europe.
Gooding was born in the 1940s and grew up in post-war Britain during the era of the Festival of Britain, the reconstruction of London, and the cultural shifts of the Swinging Sixties. He studied art at institutions that placed him in the orbit of figures connected with the Slade School of Fine Art, the Royal College of Art, and regional colleges which fostered contemporaries linked to Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, and members of the School of London. Early encounters with exhibitions at the Tate Gallery, the Whitechapel Gallery, and travels to view collections at the National Gallery and the British Museum informed his interest in European masters such as Rembrandt, Goya, and Velázquez.
Gooding’s painting and drawing practice emphasizes close observation, dense surface handling, and an economy of line reminiscent of Goya’s etchings and Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro. Critics have situated his work in relation to dialogues between Expressionism-inflected painters and contemporary realists, aligning him with figures like Euan Uglow, R.B. Kitaj, and Antony Gormley for shared concerns with the human figure and urban space. His printmaking shows affinities with techniques practiced by Pablo Picasso and Francisco de Goya while maintaining links to British print tradition exemplified by Horace Pippin and artists represented at the Royal Academy of Arts. Gooding’s palette and compositional framing often recall scenes seen in Hackney and Islington while referencing historical models from the Renaissance and the Baroque.
Gooding has exhibited at commercial galleries and institutional venues known for showing contemporary figurative art, including solo and group exhibitions alongside artists represented at Tate Modern, Serpentine Gallery, and the Camden Arts Centre. Notable series such as "Still Lives", "London Fields Studies", and a prolonged Portrait Series were shown in venues that bring together collectors and curators from institutions like the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Council, and regional museums in Manchester and Bristol. He has participated in thematic exhibitions that placed his work beside paintings by Lucian Freud, Paula Rego, Maggi Hambling, Julian Opie, and Anish Kapoor-linked shows exploring figurative practice. Biennales and art fairs at sites connected to Frieze Art Fair, Manchester International Festival, and European exhibitions in Venice and Berlin have included work by Gooding or artists operating in his milieu.
Gooding held teaching positions at art schools and universities that function as training grounds for painters, sharing studios and seminar rooms with tutors associated with the Royal College of Art, the Chelsea College of Arts, and the University of the Arts London. He supervised students who went on to careers connected with galleries and institutions like Tate Britain, Barbican Centre, and the Hayward Gallery. His pedagogical approach engaged with drawing anatomy in the tradition of Alberto Giacometti and compositional studies linked to John Ruskin’s observational methods, while participating in panels and lectures at academic conferences convened by bodies such as the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Alongside studio practice, Gooding contributed essays, reviews, and catalogue texts for magazines and newspapers that cover contemporary art, writing for outlets with editorial ties to critics and historians associated with the Art Newspaper, the Guardian, and specialist journals connected to the British Council. His criticism addressed exhibitions by artists like Lucian Freud, David Bomberg, Francis Bacon, and contemporary painters shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Gooding’s writings discuss technique, iconography, and the social context of painting in essays circulated through catalogues of galleries and small presses linked to collectors and curators at the Whitechapel Gallery and regional foundations.
Gooding received recognition in the form of nominations, shortlists, and institutional support that placed him in conversations around prizes and grants administered by organizations such as the Arts Council England, the British Council, and art prizes in the tradition of the John Moores Painting Prize and national awards that highlight figurative practice. His work appears in public and private collections alongside holdings from museums like the Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and civic collections in Leeds and Liverpool.
Gooding lived and worked in London neighborhoods that shaped his observation of urban life, maintaining studios in districts historically associated with artists who frequented Soho, Camden Town, and the East End. His influence persists through students, writings, and the inclusion of his work in exhibitions that map late 20th- and early 21st-century British figurative painting alongside practitioners such as Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Maggi Hambling, and R.B. Kitaj. Institutions preserving his legacy include university archives and museum departments handling modern British painting.
Category:British painters Category:20th-century painters Category:21st-century painters