A Death of Socrates Head with Two Luncheons on the Grass for Ears, 2000, acrylic on canvas, 72" x 72"

JOHN GOODYEAR, A NARRATIVE BIO

John Goodyear was born in Los Angeles, CA. His earliest memory of life is of an earthquake, which devastated southern California. Almost a decade later, after the death of his father, the family moved to Grosse Ile, MI the home of his maternal grandparents. Having won a full tuition scholarship, he studied art at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. At school he met and married Anne Dixon. He graduated with a Master of Design degree and was immediately drafted into the U.S. Army. Two years of service in Japan, where his wife joined him, was to have an important impact on his work. Influences from Japanese architecture and Zen Buddhism led to the sparse ambiguity that characterizes most of his work thereafter.

The same influences and the experience of painting his house led to a switch to 3-D painting. After teaching at the University of Michigan in Grand Rapids, a grant from the Graham Foundation took him to the University of Massachusetts. During two years teaching there he prepared work for the grant, which became his first solo show in New York City in 1964. Two other shows followed in New York and led to his inclusion in over fifty group shows nationwide that dealt with light and movement.

At the time of his first NYC show he was invited to join the Visual Arts faculty at Douglass College, teaching there and at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers Universtiy for thirty-three years. He replaced Roy Lichtenstein who had just resigned. During the seventies he received a fellowship to work under Gyorgy Kepes at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies while he was working on sculptures that featured inner heating. One of these was shown at the Whitney Annual. From MIT he also launched a series of shows, which encircled the world globe. Six works relating to this "Earth Curve" series were shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1972.

Residual affects of the MIT experience may have led to his involvement during the eighties in public sculpture. During that decade he completed six major public sculptures including one for IBM at Triangle Park, NC and another for the State House in Trenton, NJ, five marble reliefs. The "Negative Figure" series emerged from the public sculpture and were shown in a number of group and solo shows. While planning one of the public works, he taught at Cergy-Pontoise outside Paris as a visiting artist.
 
He retired from Rutgers in 1997 and devoted time to working on a retrospective at the Michener Museum in Bucks County. (A 52 page catalogue is available from them.) At the same time he and his wife served as co-curators of "Dada Country" at the Hunterdon Museum of Art near their home in New Jersey. Another curating job for "Iron Works," features artists who did works relating to ironing, including Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. The show at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia was held in 2003.

Goodyear’s works are included in the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC as well as fifty other public collections worldwide including England, France, Greece, Italy and Switzerland.

ABBREVIATED VITA

Education:

University of Michigan;

Master of Design, 1954. Bachelor of Design, 1952

Institutional Affiliations:

Prof. of Art, Rutgers University, l964-97.

Instructor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, l962-64.

Instructor, University of Michigan, Grand Rapids, l956-62.

Draftee, US Army, Sendai, Japan, l954-56.

Public Commissions:

2002 The Four Arts, Aluminum, Douglass Campus, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
1991 The Dawn of Law, Five marble reliefs, the State House, Trenton, New Jersey.
1984 Drawn from the Water, Stone reliefs, The Jewish Center, Princeton, New Jersey.
1983 Chiron, Plaza Tableau in cement slabs, University C0ollege of Medicine and Dentistry, Piscataway, New Jersey.
1981 Taking Flight, Light construction, International Business Machines, Triangle Park, Raleigh, North Carolina
1980 The Test, Kinetic painting, Educational Testing Services, Princeton, New Jersey.

Works in Public Collections: (Selected)

Art-in-Embassies Collection, United States State Department, Washington, DC
Biblioteca di Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy.
Biblioteque Nationale, Paris France
The British Museum, London, England.
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Hoechst-Celanese, Somerville, New Jersey
Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Texas.
Instituto Cultural Peruano-Norte Americano, Lima, Peru.
Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Macedonian Center for Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece..
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
James Michener Collection of 20th Century American Paintings, University of Texas, Austin
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor.
Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland, California
Musee des beaux arts de l’Ontario, Toronto, Canada
Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, Spain.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.
Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
New Jersey State Council on the Art, Trenton.
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton.
Newark Museum, New Jersey.
Neuberger Museum, New York University, George Rickey Collection, Purchase.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania.
Princeton, University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California.
Stiftung fur Konstrucktive und Konkrete Kunst, Zurich, Switzerland.
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut.
The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, New Jersey

One-Artist Exhibitions: (Selected)

2005 "Mars Zone" Hunterdon County Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ
2005 "The Elemental Series" Rider University Lawrenceville, NJ
2004 Gallery of Fine Art, Newtown, Pennsylvania
2001 Ben Shahn Galleries, Wayne, New Jersey
2000 Michener Museum, Doylestown Pennsylvania
2000 Ericson Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1995 Frank Martin Gallery, Muhlenburg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania
1993 Jersey City Museum, New Jersey.
1992 Snyder Fine Art, New York City
1989 Pyramid Gallery, New York City.
1987 Princeton Gallery of Fine Arts, New Jersey.
1981 Slusser Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
1981 New Jersey State Museum.
1976 Center of Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
1976 Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts.
1975 New Jersey State Museum, Trenton.
1972 Inhibodress Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
1972 Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania.
1972 Everson Museum, Syracuse University, New York.
1972 Andrew Dickson White Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
1967 Douglass College Art Gallery, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
1966 Amel Gallery, New York City.
1965 Amel Gallery, New York City.
1964 Amel Gallery, New York City.

 
Group Exhibitions: (Short List)

2007 Continuum, St. Peter's College Art Gallery, Jersey City, NJ
2004 Twister, Jack S. Blanton Museum, Austin, TX.
2004 Trace, Rosenwald ~ Wolf Gallery Philadelphia, PA.
2002 Drawings on Paper, Gary Snyder Fine Arts, New York City.
1997 Geometric Abstraction l937-1977, Snyder Fine Art, New York City.
1994 Cracks in the Modern, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada.
1992 Ten Steps, Horodner-Romley Gallery, New York City.
1992 Kunstler zwischen Idee und Realization, two year tour of Germany, the State Department.
1989 Geometric Abstraction and the Modern Spirit, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York.
1987 State Council Fellowships, Morris Museum of Art, Morristown , New Jersey.
1985 Aspects of Constructivism, The Atrium Gallery, Schenectady, New York.
1980 Spirit of Constructivism, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York.
1979 New Jersey Currents, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, tour of State galleries.
1973 Interaction, Center of Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1972 Arte de Sistemas II, Centro de Arte y Cominicacion, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1971 Unlikely Photographs, Intitute of Contemporary Art, London and tour of Scotland.
1971 Elements of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
1968 Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.
1968 Plus by Minus, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
1968 Artists under Forty, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.
1967 Radius 5, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C. and two year tour of American museums.
1966 Light/Motion/Space, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1966 Contemporary American Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.
1966 Annual Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.
1965 The Responsive Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
1960 New Forms-New Media I and II, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York City

Exhibitions Curated: (Selected)

2003 Iron Works, Anne Reid Gallery, Princeton & Rosenwald Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1999 Dada Country, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey, curated with Anne Goodyear, reviewed by Barry Schwabsky, The New York Times, March 21.
1967 The Gun Show, Douglass College Art Gallery, Rutgers University

Catalogue:

A 52 page catalogue of John Goodyear, Thinking into Form, Works 1950-2000 is available from the Michener Museum.www.michenerartmuseum.org
138 South Pine Street, Doylestown, PA 18901