Untitled Still life (Tiger)

Artist Brenda Goodman (American, born 1943)

Date1969

MediumOil on canvas board

Dimensions14 × 10 in. (35.6 × 25.4 cm) Frame Size: 17 3/4 × 13 3/4 in. (45.1 × 34.9 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineGift of Dennis Nawrocki, 2018

Object numberUAC6606

DescriptionIn Kick Out the Jams: Detroit’s Cass Corridor 1963-1977, the catalog for the Detroit Institute of Arts’ benchmark 1980 exhibit, there’s a black-and-white reproduction of a 1970 painting by Brenda Goodman called simply Cat. The beast in question is hunched up, its head lowered (the puffy cheeks suggest a tom), and it bears a rather untrustworthy leer on its face. The animal’s wide body is vigorously marked with jagged, slashing stripes, and its spiky ears, tail, and claws make it look even more prickly and potentially dangerous. Though WSU’s untitled painting is only a third of the size of Cat at 10” x 14”, the bouquet of tiger lilies in Goodman’s small still life has the same savage nature as an actual feline — indeed, while the suspicious cat merely threatens to strike, the blossoms here erupt from the top of their blue pitcher in a multicolored burst of flame-like petals and arcing stamens. As if to downplay the flowery aspect of the subject matter, only the word “Tiger” is gouged into the thick gray paint of the background above the explosion; likewise, the heavy impasto technique belies the softness of a lily’s petals. And yet, the picture does perfect justice to the tiger lily’s fireworks-display appearance. The scene isn’t all violence: the cool, wavy blue pattern on the white tablecloth beneath the pitcher balances out the fire above.
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Native Detroiter Brenda Goodman was born in 1943. She studied at Wayne State, but she got her degree from the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts (now the College for Creative Studies). There she received rigorous formal training, and honed her craft by copying both Old Master and Modern painters. Goodman turned the skills she acquired to exploring her own emotional and psychological state. Her work over the years has always included both abstract and narrative or autobiographical elements, existing somewhere between abstract expressionism and a kind of surrealism. She has taught and lectured around the country, and participated in numerous exhibitions. “My intent is to extend the parameters of my specific and personal issues to reveal and comment on basic universal emotions and conditions,” read her artist statement for a 2007 solo show at the Brooklyn Museum, which featured a series of starkly honest and revealing self-portraits of a woman then in her early 60s. “My work is about reality, not irony.”

Text by Sean Bieri

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