For a brief three years beginning in 1933, Goodridge Roberts became the first artist-in-residence at Queen’s University. He went on to a distinguished career as a painter of landscapes, still-lifes and portraits. Born to a prominent literary family, Goodridge Roberts studied at Montreal’s École des Beaux Arts and at the Art Students’ League in New York with Max Weber and John Sloan. An intensely introverted and private man, the portraits he painted were almost exclusively members of his immediate family, making this painting of a young neighbour a rarity. Portrait of Mildred Goodman is characteristic of Roberts’ use of simplified, solid forms and bold colour to achieve a straightforward communication between sitter and viewer.