Philip R. Goodwin

Philip Russell Goodwin was born on September 16, 1881, in Norwich, Connecticut. He trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Art Students League in New York, and studied under the illustrator Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia, roughly between 1898 and 1900. No degree or completion year is documented for any of these periods of study; his education is described in sources as art training rather than a formal credential.

Goodwin built his career as an illustrator of wildlife, hunting, fishing, and Western subjects, publishing widely in magazines including Everybody's, Harper's Monthly, Harper's Weekly, Outing, and Scribner's. He illustrated the first edition of Jack London's The Call of the Wild in 1903 and was commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt to illustrate African Game Trails in 1909. His commercial work included calendars for Brown & Bigelow, advertising for the Marlin Firearms Company, and artwork tied to Winchester's long-running Horse and Rider trademark. He died on December 14, 1935, reportedly of pneumonia, in the Mamaroneck, New York area; one detailed account describes him being found unconscious in his studio and taken to a hospital in nearby Port Chester shortly before his death.

Goodwin is generally placed among the leading figures of the Golden Age of American illustration, alongside contemporaries such as N.C. Wyeth, on the strength of his sustained work for major national magazines and his high-profile book commissions for London and Roosevelt. American Illustration highlights his sustained visibility and popularity in that period, though no formal art prizes or institutional honors for Goodwin during his lifetime are documented in the sources reviewed, and no exact, attributable quotes from named critics in major general-interest outlets could be confirmed. His standing instead rests on the durability of his commercial and institutional footprint: continued inclusion in museum collections such as the Glenbow Museum, the National Museum of Wildlife Art, and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and on a dedicated biographical monograph on his career by the historian Larry Len Peterson.

Goodwin's auction record is Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, which sold for USD 968,000 at the Coeur d'Alene Art Auction in July 2022, a result multiple specialist sources describe as his world-record price. The next-highest recorded price is USD 786,500 for Dangerous Sport, also sold at Coeur d'Alene. Most of his auction history sits well below these two results, with earlier top prices in the low hundreds of thousands and a Heritage Auctions high closer to USD 75,000. There is no living gallery or estate that represents Goodwin; his market operates entirely on the secondary market, through specialist auction houses such as Coeur d'Alene Art Auction and Scottsdale Art Auction, and through dealers specializing in historic Western and sporting art.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Goodwin, so provenance and the judgment of specialist auction house experts carry unusual weight when evaluating a work. His market is thin and top-heavy: a small number of major paintings, mostly hunting and wildlife scenes, account for the results collectors cite most often, and the gap between his record price and his typical sale price is wide. Because he has no current gallery or estate representation, all activity happens on the secondary market. Buyers should also be aware that his name appears in listings as both "Philip R. Goodwin" and "Philip Russell Goodwin," referring to the same artist, and that some auction catalogues carry a birth-year typo of 1882 rather than the documented 1881.