Design and Art Australia Online

painter, modeller, potter and ceramic artist, was born in Adelaide on 8 March 1900. She began formal art studies in 1917 at the SA School of Arts and Crafts, attending life classes and studying clay modelling with Robert Craig. In 1918 her family moved to Sydney, where she continued art studies with Dattilo Rubbo. The family returned to Adelaide in 1919, Doreen again attending the School of Arts and Crafts. She joined the Adelaide Sketch Club and there met the young painter John Goodchild, whom she married in April 1926. The next month they left for a three-year study tour of Europe, starting in London. Doreen studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1926-28, where she again took life classes; she also studied pottery with Dora Billington and clay modelling with Richard Garbe.

After travelling through Europe, the Goodchilds returned to Adelaide in late 1928. The trip had been an important step in the careers of both; they had been impressed by the involvement of artists as designers in industry and enthused by the vital artistic environment in London. The inner-suburban house at Kensington Gardens into which they settled soon featured modern furniture designed by John, and in 1929, Doreen’s ceramic studio. John built kilns for her, one of which was coke fired for biscuit ware and another gas-fired for glazed pieces. John and his younger brother helped Doreen with firings.

Having married a fellow artist, it may have seemed that married life would be one of shared artistic endeavours and successes, as in fact it started out to be. In the following years, inspired with artistic enthusiasm shared with her husband, and before motherhood assumed a dominant role, she produced her most significant ceramic works. Most were modelled, figurative studies, but she also made wheel-thrown items—vases, plates, bowls—usually with painted decoration. Her drawing and painting skills were applied to most of her work, in the choice of colours and in the choice and application of surface decoration.

Doreen Goodchild, however, soon found that maternal commitments took priority and often curtailed work, although she continued to make ceramics until her kilns were dismantled for moving house in about 1940. She agrees that most of her best pieces were either made or conceived in the early 1930s when she was freer to channel her inspiration and apply herself to her work. Although her ceramic career lasted only about a decade, she maintained her interest in the medium and observed changes in ceramic styles with interest and enthusiasm.

Doreen had continued to paint, even when producing ceramics, and exhibited etchings, drawings and paintings with the Royal SA Society of Arts also. However, John Goodchild’s successful career as a painter, printmaker, Art Gallery Board member and art-school Principal overshadowed that of his wife. After his death in 1980, the artistic achievements of Doreen were again recognised, her ceramic works of earlier decades being included in major exhibitions and public collections in Adelaide, Canberra and Shepparton. She again exhibited paintings in the 1970s and 1980s and continued to paint, travel and find enthusiasm for life and art until her early nineties.

Writers:

Heaven, Judith

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011