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My accomplice, Frank Goodingham, who has died aged 85, was a carver and gilder who may flip his hand to nearly any craft.
Frank was born in East Ham, London, the son of Minnie (nee Hand), who had managed a grocer’s store, and Invoice Goodingham, a builder. In the course of the second world struggle, Frank, his mom and his elder sister, Muriel, have been evacuated to Dinton, close to Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. He by no means forgot seeing the docks in flames as they left.
After he left Clark’s school, Ilford, in Essex, Frank’s first job was at a West Finish business artwork studio, Particular person Artists. He rose from tea boy to determine artist earlier than being known as up for his nationwide service in 1956 and posted to Libya.
Frank later took a collection of driving jobs, together with at FA Pollak, the image framers. There, he turned fascinated with woodcarving and gilding, and wangled his method into the workshop to study the crafts from practitioners who had arrived from Germany earlier than the struggle. He labored for a number of London framing companies and artwork and vintage sellers, and arrange a workshop within the coal-hole outdoors his basement flat in North Gower Avenue.
Frank was additionally a self-taught multi-instrumentalist. Within the Nineteen Fifties, he had performed the trombone in a jazz band, which later turned a rock group, the Brothers Grimm, with Frank on guitar. They launched a single and toured with the Rolling Stones, with Frank as roadie. After a gig on the 100 Membership within the West Finish, he met Sheenagh Williams, then a trainee trainer. They married in 1966, and had two sons, Ben and Tim, earlier than divorcing within the 70s. Each sons adopted in Frank’s footsteps as woodworkers, coaching as furnishings designers, and buying and selling as Goodingham Brothers in London.
I met in Frank within the 70s, and we moved to rural Lincolnshire with my son, Oli. There, Frank made puppets and took up silversmithing. Within the 80s, we moved to Cambridge, the place Frank met Julie Crick, the image restorer, and collectively they labored for vintage sellers, museums and plenty of faculties in Cambridge. Frank restored frames and furnishings, and in addition produced unique work. He made a pair of gilded wood pier glasses for the Outdated Mixture Room at Trinity Faculty, in addition to restoring some large trophy frames. He later handed on his abilities to among the cabinetmakers at Trinity.
Frank additionally took up pictures, establishing his personal darkroom, taking closeups of flowers and bugs, images of Fenland waterways, and research of decaying willow bushes.
He retired formally on his eightieth birthday, however returned to drawing, took up the ukulele, and was nonetheless taking footage on his iPad weeks earlier than he died. His work, although nameless, hangs within the Courtauld Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Nationwide Horseracing Museum in Newmarket and the Nationwide Portrait Gallery.
He’s survived by Ben and Tim, his grandsons, Tom, Dan and Will, and by Oli and me.
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