an artist in the garden: Manny Farber

Manny Farber, one of San Diego’s treasured local artists, had a new exhibition at Quint Contemporary Art in La Jolla (actually just a neighborhood of San Diego, but don’t tell that to the La Jollans). The title of the show is “Drawing Across Time,” and features works on paper Farber executed in the garden of the home that he shares with fellow artist Patricia Patterson.

Manny Farber Drawing Across Time image


Manny Farber Drawing Across Time image


Manny Farber Drawing Across Time image
Manny Farber. Drawing Across Time (details). Mixed media on paper, 9 7/8 x 22 3/8 inches.

Lively diagonals animate the horizontal-panoramic-format mixed-media works, and space swirls around with the garden viewed simultaneously from different vantage points. His earlier work, such as the one below, share a similar sense of space, but being closer to drawing than painting, the work is freer, looser and more immediate. And of course be sure to add two and a half decades of thoughtful development to the equation.

Manny Farber: Sam's Bunch 1980-81
Manny Farber. Sam’s Bunch, 1980-81. Oil on canvas, 43.7 x 52.2 in.

Unfortunately, the exhibition closed yesterday, on June 14, but the Quint Gallery site has a generous sampling of the work online.

One thought on “an artist in the garden: Manny Farber”

  1. Interesting pictures – I like his use of ‘scrapbooks’ in the gardens in the earlier one and the strong images in the newer work. Your photos are beautiful too. Thanks for visiting my blog and for introducing me to yours, which I shall follow now. All the best.

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