His father was based there as director of the Museu de História Natural e Etnografia do Pará (presently the Emílio Goeldi Museum).

After serving for a brief period in the army during the First World War, Goeldi moved to Geneva, where he was accepted at the École des Arts et Métiers.

Frustrated with the academic environment, he abandoned the school after his father’s death in 1917 and began studying with artists Serge Pahnke (1875–1950) and Henri van Muyden (1860–s.d.

In 1919 Goeldi returned to Rio de Janeiro and began a career of engraver and illustrator for popular magazines.

Goeldi's work has been exposed posthumously in more than a hundred expositions in Brazil, Argentina, France, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain.