Sidney Goodman: Man in the Mirror

Sidney Goodman (1936–2013) was among the most important American figurative painters of the post-World War II era. This exhibition was the first major presentation of Goodman's works on paper and consisted of 63 large and small scale works. 

A Philadelphia native, Goodman attended the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts) from 1954 to 1958. In 1961, he received critical attention at his New York debut exhibition and was awarded the Whitney Museum of American Arts' Neysa McMein Purchase Award. He won numerous prizes and honorary degrees including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1962, the Hazlette Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts (Painting), and an honorary doctorate from Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts. His work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions and appears in major collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Goodman saw his work as embracing two major concepts: "One is about shades of ambiguity and clarity. The other is about the richness of light and color. The physical and spiritual realms of human experience merge through the forms of light and darkness. The sense of continuity from youth to old age is reflected by a preoccupation with global events. A concurrent theme is an everyday, the routine, the beauty of the commonplace."

Goodman was a full professor of painting at PAFA, where he taught from 1978 to 2011.