Dennis H. Farber

The Death of President Coolidge by Dennis Farber, Honolulu Museum of Art

Dennis H. Farber (March 8, 1946 – May 8, 2017) was an American painter and photographer. He received a BA from Trinity College, Cambridge Hartford, Connecticut in 1968 and an MFA from The Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California in 1975.[1] He was a professor at Iolani School, Honolulu, HI 1969 – 1971, the University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1993 – 1998 and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland (1998 – 2016)[2] Farber was a recipient New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 1987. He was also awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1995, two residencies at Yaddo 2004 & 2008, Saratoga Springs, NY, and awarded a Mid Atlantic Council for the Arts Grant in 2005.^[1]

Farber's photographs run the gamut from street photography to manipulated images to painted photographs many of which are abstract. The majority of his photographs are large format 20” x 24” Polaroid prints. Most of his paintings are completely abstract, such as The Death of President Coolidge in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art. The Baltimore Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), the Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, Arizona), the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, Ohio), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), the Hawaii Commission for the Arts, the International Center of Photography (New York City), the Jewish Museum (New York City), the Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach, CA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Museum of New Mexico (Santa Fe), the Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, California), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, are among the public collections holding work by Dennis Farber.[3]

Farber’s photographic work was part of photography’s expanding boundaries in the 1970s and 1980s. Most all of Farber’s pictures came from his collages of found images and re-photographed on the 20 x 24 Polaroid camera. He participated in Polaroid Corporation’s Artist Support Program. In 1992 his large format Polaroids were showcased in MoMA’s New Photography 8 exhibit. The same year his work was one six contemporary artists’ works in The Jewish Museum’s widely traveled exhibit, Bridges and Boundaries, African Americans and American Jews. The work was also included in The Edge of Childhood, Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY, I, Diane Brown Gallery, New York, NY, The Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, which began the year before at MoMA, NY. Farber’s large format Polaroids were also included in OPEN ENDS, Innocence and Experience, Museum of Modern Art’s, (New York, NY) millennial exhibit. Link to resume

Farber was also an influential teacher, first at the Iolani School, then at both undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) 1993 – 1998, and the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore) 1998-2016 in the Foundation and Painting Departments. He also directed MICA’s Mount Royal Graduate School of Art, 2000 – 2004. While living in New York he taught as an adjunct at New York University. He served as an Associate Dean at both the University of New Mexico (College of Fine Art) and the Maryland Institute College of Art (Foundation Department).

Mentors - Anthony Pratt and Terrance LaNoue Trinity College (Hartford, CT), 1965 – 1968 Roland Reiss and Karl Benjamin Claremont Graduate School 1974 – 1975

The Baltimore Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), the Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, Arizona), the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, Ohio), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography (New York City), the Jewish Museum (New York City), the Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach, California), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Museum of New Mexico (Santa Fe), the Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, California), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, they are among the public collections holding work by Dennis Farber.^[2]

Speaker

2007 Presenter, AICAD, New York, NY 2005 Panel (Darcy Alexander, Ann Ellegood), Baltimore Museum of Art 2008 Akademie Schloss Solitude, Art & Fear, Stuttgart, Germany

Value in the Arts, Think Tank on Art & Economics, Lake Como, Italy 2000 Beyond Reproduction, Mid-America Print Conference, Laramie, WY International Conference of Cultural Economists, Chicago, IL 2002 The Current Condition of Painting, The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore

Bibliography Critic’s Choice, Baltimore City Paper, May 28, 2008 Art Review, Baltimore Sun, March 14, 2007 Art Review, Baltimore) City Paper, August 2, 2006 Work to Learn From. City Paper, September 12, 2005 Art Review, The Baltimore Sun, August 20, 2005 American Perspectives, Kyoto Newspaper, October 23, 2000 Photography Review, The New York Times, July 28, 2000 Art Review, The Hartford Courant, February 23, 1997 "Stranger Than Fiction", The Hartford Advocate, February 27, 1997 Specchi di ombro, Il Messagaro, March 27, 1996 Dolls, an ongoing series, THE, March 1996 Disturbing Dolls, Albuquerque Journal, February 18, 1996 Enchanted Subversions, Luna Cornea, Fall 1995 Wit on Wry, The New York Times, December 26, 1993 Absurdity on Film, New York Newsday, December 31, 1993 Photography Review, The New Yorker, April 12, 1993 Choices, Dennis Farber, The Village Voice, March 9, 1993 “Peter Galassi and the Imperfect Medium”, Smithsonian, Volume 23, Number 10, January 1993 “Scoping Out New Photography at the Modern”, The New York Times, November 15, 1992 Art in Review, The New York Times, October 4, 1992 “Dysfunction in the Family Album”, Artforum, May 1992 xPhotography View / Vicki Goldberg, “Context Is All - Or Nothing”, The New York Times, July 7, 1991 Choices, Color Obscura, The Village Voice, June 11, 1991 “Woodstock Vice”, Daily Freeman, PREVIEW, Choices, Dennis Farber, The Village Voice, May 28, 1991 Art Review, Times Picayune, New Orleans, February 22, l990 Art in Review, New York Times, July 6, l990 Creativity, Los Angeles Times, November l4, l989 The Galleries, Los Angeles Times, April l4, l989 Centric 34, Catalog; Dennis Farber, Eleanor Heartney, January l989 “Blasting Out of the Darkroom”, Taxi Magazine, June l989 “Merger of Paint + Photography”, The Long Beach Press Telegram, February l2, l989 “Capturing the Poetics of Space”, Artweek, January l7, l987 Exhibition Review, American Photographer, January l987 “Painted Photography: A Matter of Fact or Fiction”, Spot, Houston Center for Photography, Summer l986 “Feigning and Framing the Real: The Art of Dennis Farber”, Eleanor Heartney, Arts Magazine, May l985

References

• Heartney, Eleanor, Centric 34, Catalog; Dennis Farber, l989
• New York Times, Wit on Wry, December 26, 1993
• The New Yorker, Photography Review, April 12, 1993
• Tokyo Museum of Art, American Perspectives, Photographs from the Polaroid Collection, 2000, ISBN 447301763X
• Village Voice, Choices, Dennis Farber, May 28, 1991
• Village Voice, Choices, Dennis Farber, March 9, 1993

Footnotes