Daniel Goodwin was born at Kenmore Park Station (Ernabella, South Australia) in 1947. He was taken away from his family at the age of 5 and sent to a home in Port Augusta where he went to school until he was 15 years old.

He then came back to the Centre to look for his mother, and it took him 4 years to find her. He had two brothers and one sister, but never saw or met his father. Both of Danny’s children, Dana (son) and Norisha (daughter) who live in Dubbo, also paint.

Moving to Alice Springs, Danny lived with the Namatjira family for 3 years, where he was taught to paint by the sons of Albert Namatjira, Enos, Keith and Ewald. Danny then went on to develop his own unique style.

Danny went to work on a number of cattle stations in South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory, where his closeness to the land and the spectacular scenery saw him capture the essence of the outback in a number of evocative and wonderful paintings. In his own words, ‘I wanted to show others how beautiful it was’.

One of his first awards was the 1968 ‘Adelaide Aboriginal Artist Award’ for his watercolour ‘Paterson Ranges, Western Australia’. Danny has had numerous exhibitions in NSW and won a number of awards, including the ‘Best Aboriginal Painter of the Year’. In 1991 he also won the ‘Red Ochre Award’. Included among his award winning paintings were a number of landscape works and ‘Goanna Laying Eggs’ (a painting depicted in the Aboriginal dot-style).

In 1992, an exhibition was held in Alice Springs where Danny’s paintings were sold by auction to raise funds to send school children on holiday.

Over the years Danny has travelled widely about Australia, selling his paintings and spreading the knowledge of his artwork. Danny’s paintings have been sold to people from all around the world, with one large painting that was sold in 2001 to an overseas buyer for $125,000.