Eldest son of Edward Goodall, under whom he studied. Encouraged by such artists as Ruskin, Roberts & Turner, who were frequent visitors. He accompanied Schomburgh on the Guiana Boundary Expedition in 1841 & was in Crimea with the ILN in 1854. Travelled on continent & in Morocco. Examples in The British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Ashmolean, and elsewhere.
Goodall was the son of Edward Goodall, the engraver of J. M. W. Turner’s works, and his brothers and sister were the artists Frederick Goodall (1822–1904), a Royal Academician, and Walter Goodall (1830–1889) and Eliza Goodall (1827–1916). Apprenticed to his father’s office, in his teens he won a silver medal at the Society of Arts. His work was exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society.
British Guiana
Goodall was to sketch the people, landscape, plants and animal life on an expedition commissioned by the Prussian government to map British Guiana’s boundaries. The botanical watercolours that Goodall had made were exhibited in Berlin, and the sketches of the indigenous tribes, in London and Paris. All the illustrations are now at the British Library. The watercolours depict Guiana’s indigenous peoples, some of whom are now extinct, and as such are an important ethnographical record.
Return to Britain
After returning from Guiana in 1844, Goodall continued to exhibit his watercolours, chiefly at the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, to which he was elected a member in 1864, but also at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Society of British Artists.
Crimean War
In December 1854 Goodall was appointed war artist in the Crimea for the Illustrated London News. He witnessed the battles at the Alma and Balaclava, and the Siege of Sebastopol. A sketchbook from Goodall’s time in the Crimea is at the British Library.
He continued to exhibit his work in London, and by 1901 had exhibited 328 works at the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours and thirty six at the British Institution.
