Donald Goodall; Art Educator, Museum Official

Donald B. Goodall, art educator and museum official who pioneered the introduction of Latin American art in the United States, has died. He was 85.

Goodall, a Los Angeles native, died Sunday in Glendale of pneumonia.

A former chairman of the USC fine arts department, he also served as curator of the Window South Collection, sponsored by Paul M. Cook from 1979 to 1989. In that position, Goodall was responsible for more than 300 works by Latin American artists working in foreign countries.

Traveling frequently to Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Haiti, he sought out and popularized unknown artists as well as the well-established Carlos Merida and Rufino Tamayo. He co-wrote a 1991 book, “Enrique Grau, Colombian Artist.”

As founder and director of the University of Texas Art Museum in Austin from 1959 to 1978, Goodall acquired the largest collection of Latin American art in the United States for that institution.

Goodall also organized seminars for the Latin American studies programs at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. At Stanford, he headed a program to acquaint elementary schoolchildren with the art of Central and South America.

Educated at the University of Oregon, the University of Chicago and Harvard University, Goodall began his career as director of the Utah Art Center in Salt Lake City in 1938. From there he went to the University of Texas, where he taught and served as dean of art. He then headed the Museum School of the Toledo Museum of Art in 1947.

Goodall was USC dean of art and professor from 1948 until 1959, when he returned to the University of Texas as art department chairman and head of art collections.

During his tenure at USC, Goodall was active in Southern California art museums. He was vice president of the Los Angeles County Museum Assn. in 1950 and a trustee of the Pasadena Art Museum from 1954 to 1959. He occasionally wrote art criticism for The Times.

He also served on the board of the National Assn. of Schools of Art from 1963 to 1973.

He is survived by three daughters, Brooks Goodall Szolyga of Saratoga, Calif.; Anne Goodall Wheeler of Medford, Ore.; and Hollis Goodall of Glendale; and a brother, G. Robert Goodall of New York City.