From The Postmodern To The Pastoral: Two Recent Exhibitions in Hull (4/4) By Philip Wincolmlee-Barnes PortEst Exhibition Photographs by Andrew Quinn 'How to trap this transient thing?'

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4).

Yet he frequently avoided wider acclaim for his work, refusing to submit work to the Royal Academy and turning down a nomination to become an Associate Academician. ('He constantly undervalued both himself and his art, and tended to adopt a cavalier attitude to the question of payment,' states the accompanying exhibition catalogue).

Late 1950's modernism made him unfashionable and, arguably, his reluctance to engage with the wider world of contemporary art consigned him to a kind of self-imposed 'rut' (or a 'cheerfully square peg in a round hole,' as he has been more optimistically described). A number of private commissions from his surgeon friend Peter Walton did lead to a looser, more impressionistic style - but only on Walton's firm insistence of desiring an 'unfinished' look (The Operating Theatre being the most striking example of Goodin's freer approach).

Something of a self-styled 'English eccentric', he could frequently be spotted along the coasts and across the countryside of Yorkshire, by dent of the bright tea cosy he wore instead of a hat. In his final decade, housebound due to illness, he continued to paint from memory, all the time pursuing the illusive phantasm of what he called 'that one real painting'.

Dubious as I am about 'artistic patronage' (admittedly because I so seldom receive any), it was the representations of working life - generally commissioned by local businesses - that I found to be the most arresting in the exhibition. Behind the scenes views of tanneries, bakeries, laundries and canister works, are all depicted with a kind of frenetic zeal, detail and vividness. One could almost imagine these paeans to physical labour being employed as Communist propaganda, with their clean lines of organised employment and their regimented divisions of labour. We are all familiar, no doubt, with painters earnestly striving to capture the majesty of a cornfield or a babbling brook, but examples of more down to earth - not to mention downright 'dirty' toil - are not quite so common as a genre in art. Yet undoubtedly it is the landscape works for which Goodin will remain most popular. These embody a picturesque, 'bygone era' charm, seeming to conjure a world of ruddy-cheeked and pleasantly inebriated farmhands, local squires cantering around their sunny English estates, and teashops that have never even heard of either 'latte' or 'expresso'. There is, admittedly, a tendency towards sentimentality which, in a environment now ever more consumed by petrol stations and supermarket speculators, has little room for quiet pastoral idylls or riverside gypsy encampments (two of Goodin's favourite themes - closely followed by country churches and harbour scenes). Having walked (and, on occasion, slept) across much of the Wolds and the East Yorkshire coastline, his work, for me, is authoritative on the characteristics of the district - the undulating hills and valleys, their elongated shadows, the crisp light, and their vast skies. Living in the city, as I do, one can almost forget that, in nearby places, a vision something akin to William Blake's of an 'English Albion' is merely a bus ride away. But this is not the 'natural wilderness' so beloved of (but seldom successfully lived in by) the Romantics. It is countryside, i.e. a manmade result of agriculture and industry, of trade and commerce, which has shaped and determined the lie of these lands. Churches, harbours and village markets (no matter how picturesque), one might say, do not 'grow on trees'. It would be interesting to retrace some of Goodin's chosen havens - which he captured so meticulously and lovingly over the course of his long career. Would it still be possible to readily discern his proud church spires, the Vale of York, or the mouth of the Humber amid new-build houses, the encroaching asphalt and today's green belt shopping centres? I suppose even I'm getting nostalgic now... www.myspace.com/wincolmlee

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