1917–24
Manny Farber born February 20 in Douglas, Arizona. Parents and family, Russian immigrants to Southwest, own succession of dry goods stores. Two older brothers, Leslie and David, both later psychiatrists.
1925
Begins copying photos and cartoons of sports stars from Douglas Daily Dispatch.
1931
Forms jazz orchestra with brothers and Corporal Adams, saxophone teacher from African-American army camp on outskirts of Douglas.
1932
Sportswriter and illustrator (Mickey Mouse and pals are motif) for Copper Kettle, Douglas High School annual, and is elected sophomore class president. Family moves to Vallejo, California, in fall.
1934–35
Enters University of California, Berkeley. Becomes sportswriter for Daily Bruin newspaper and plays freshman football. Enters Stanford as sophomore and takes first drawing class.
1936–37
Moves to California School of Fine Arts where fellow students and friends include Hassell Smith, Janet Terrace, and Carl George; then enrolls at Rudolf Schaefer School of Design, San Francisco.
1938
Marries Janet Terrace, figurative painter and writer. Works as guard and Saturday morning children’s art instructor at San Francisco Museum of Art. Begins apprenticeship in carpenters and joiners union; builds tract homes and participates in construction of World’s Fair held on Treasure Island.
1939
Relocates to Washington, D.C., where his brother Leslie is a psychiatric resident at St. Elizabeths Hospital. Through Les and his wife, Midge, meets future film director Nicholas Ray, a resident psychodramatist. Other friends include Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, future founders of Atlantic Records. Teaches painting; finishes carpenter’s apprenticeship on Bethesda Naval Hospital, Jefferson Memorial dome, and Army and Navy barracks in area.
1942
Moves to Greenwich Village, New York. Begins career as critic for The New Republic, writing first about art (February), then also movies (March). Work brings him into contact with writers and artists such as Isaac Rosenfeld, Seymour Krim, Willy Poster, Alfred Kazin, Edmund Wilson, Saul Bellow, David Bazelon, Walker Evans, Jean Stafford, Robert Warshow, F. W. Dupee, James Agee, and Mary McCarthy.
1943–44
Moves to 219 West 14th Street. Becomes friendly with painters Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and William Baziotes. Meets artists around Hans Hoffman School such as Nell Blaine, Virginia Admiral, Robert De Niro, and Larry Rivers, who influence a move to brighter color and push-pull brushwork. Other close friends include James and Mia Agee, Weldon and Ann Kees, Willy and Connie Poster, Betty Huling.
1945
Farber and wife separate. Begins painting semi-abstractions with Matisse-like coloration and iconic, striped figuration. Paintings will be included in early group shows organized by Clement Greenberg, Peggy Guggenheim, and James Johnson Sweeney.
1947
Publishes last review for New Republic, when Henry Wallace becomes editor. Tries to get job back, but Wallace refuses.
1949
Begins to write about films, art, jazz, and furniture for The Nation; first review published May 7. Takes over as Time film critic from James Agee on August 18.
1950
Discharged by Time January 24. Returns to write about films and art at The Nation, where he becomes friendly with subeditor Jerry Tallmer, later a founder of The Village Voice. Marries Marsha Picker.
1951–53
Resumes carpentry. In a “tactical switch” from Nation film columns starts to write “long position articles” including “Movies Aren’t Movies Anymore”—later retitled “The Gimp”—for Commentary (June 1952); “Blame the Audience” for Commonweal (December 19, 1952); and a collaboration with Willy Poster, “Preston Sturges” (City Lights, Spring 1954).
1954
Last Nation column on January 9.
1957
Daughter Amanda born. First solo exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, featuring words-and-straw paintings. Publishes “Underground Films” in Commentary (November) and “Hard-Sell Cinema” in single-issue magazine Perspectives. Writes multimedia criticism for The New Leader, first column November 8.
1959
Last column for The New Leader on November 23.
1960
Works on construction crew around Manhattan’s eastern perimeter and in Roslyn, New York. Carpentry work on 40 Lefrak apartment buildings in Forest Hills leads to sculpture phase: hundreds of wooden constructions made of three-quarter-inch decking recycled from construction project’s garbage.
1961
Works on canvas parallel sculpture and break with Abstract Expressionism.
1962
Publishes “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art” in Film Culture (Winter). Group and one-person sculpture exhibitions at Kornblee Gallery, New York. Over summer months, gallery converted into single environment created by Farber, including ceilings, walls, and floors.
1963
Publishes “Fading Movie Star”–later retitled “The Decline of the Actor”–in Commentary (July), analysis of emerging director-oriented auteur cinema.
1964
Prepares “bit player article” which is never printed. Takes carpentry job at Corning Glass and commutes between Manhattan and Corning, New York, on weekends.
1965
Marsha Picker and Farber separate. Shares apartment with writer Chandler Brossard. Begins writing monthly column for Cavalier in December.
1966
Helen Levitt, photographer and poker partner, introduces Farber to Patricia Patterson, artist and teacher for Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Farber and Patterson co-rent loft at 20 Warren Street, near City Hall. Last Cavalier column in December.
1967
Begins film column under editor Philip Leider for Artforum in November, jointly written with Patricia Patterson. With Patterson also begins abstractions using format, character, and three-dimensionality of sculpture, and develops process of bleeding acrylic paint through Kraft paper. Patterson’s close involvement in both Farber’s criticism and painting will continue throughout his career. Receives Guggenheim Fellowship to complete Negative Space, a collection of his critical writing. One-person exhibition at Warren Street studio.
1968
Writer Donald Phelps, a close friend, devotes issue of magazine For Now (Number 9) to short Farber anthology. One-person exhibition at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Begins to teach script writing and art history at School of Visual Arts, New York. Receives painting grant from National Endowment for the Arts. With Patricia Patterson and friend Jeremy Lebensohn, renovates 1815 Federal House, where all three reside.
1969
Runs writing workshop at School for Visual Arts, where he meets film critics and future friends Greg Ford and Duncan Shepherd. Solo exhibition at 20 Warren Street sponsored by O.K. Harris Gallery.
1970
Joins University of California, San Diego (UCSD), visual arts faculty, which includes artists Michael Todd, Ellen van Fleet, Newton Harrison, Gary Hudson, and Harold Cohen, as well as critics Amy Goldin and David Antin and art historian Jehanne Teilhet.
1971
Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies published by Praeger in the U.S., and by Studio Vista in England. One-person exhibitions at O.K. Harris, New York; San Diego State University; and Parker Street 470 Gallery, Boston. Meets Tom Luddy of Pacific Film Archives; contact results in interactive film programs between Berkeley and San Diego.
1972
Final Artforum film column in November. One-person exhibitions at O.K. Harris, New York, and San Diego State University. Spends two weeks at Venice Film Festival on first European trip. Sees films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and other young European directors and builds “Radical Film” course at UCSD around experiences. Gives two lectures at Pacific Film Archives on Jean-Marie Straub and Fassbinder, as well as seminar at New York University, which marks change of critical concern with Hollywood action films to experimental New York filmmakers and radical directors outside U.S. Meets filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin, who later joins UCSD faculty.
1973
One-person exhibitions at Parker Street 470 Gallery, Boston; Suzanne Saxe Gallery, San Francisco; David Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles. Juries American Film Festival, Dallas.
1974
Negative Space is reissued in paperback without Farber’s permission by Hillstone under the title Movies. Abbreviated Spanish translation of Negative Space published by Anagrama as Arte Termita contra Elefante Blanco. Commences narrative-type paintings using bird’s-eye viewpoint and small objects to explore ideas about composition; backgrounds replaced by stagelike platforms; projects combine concerns and materials allied to experience in movie theaters. One-person exhibition at Jack Glenn Gallery, Los Angeles. Teaches painting at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena.
1975
Farber and Patricia Patterson co-author six articles for City Magazine (some reprinted in Film Comment) which define divisions between traditional box-office films and other cinema by Straub, Nagisa Oshima, Michael Snow, among others. Visits Mexico City, Oaxaca, and New York Film Festival.
1976
Article (with Patricia Patterson) about Taxi Driver for Film Comment in May-June issue. Marries Patricia Patterson. Begins “auteur” paintings, adding to narratives by using allusions, puns, and cues that refer to subject matter of actual films along with painted notes from his own movie criticism. Teaches course on films of Werner Herzog, Oshima, Jacques Rivette, and Budd Boetticher at New York University. Included in UCSD faculty exhibition. One-person exhibition at Illinois Wesleyan, Bloomington.
1977
Final film article (with Patricia Patterson) in Film Comment in November-December issue. One-person exhibitions at Seder/Creigh Gallery, Coronado, California, and O.K. Harris, New York. Awarded fellowship by National Endowment for the Humanities. Interview with Rick Thompson appears in Film Comment, explaining style and content changes in Patterson-Farber collaboration.
1978
Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship to write book on Munich films; book is never published, but research leads to numerous paintings. One-person exhibitions at Converse College, Spartanburg, South Carolina; Ruth Schaffner Gallery, Los Angeles; Hansen-Fuller Gallery, San Francisco. Group exhibition at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art, Long Island City, New York. First retrospective exhibition at La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (now MCASD), accompanied by lectures on films Katzelmacher, Christmas in July, Me and My Gal, and History Lessons. Paints second “auteur” series, discarding silver color harmony and increasing intensity, items, and scale changes for more Baroque-style effects. Gives lecture series at Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, on works of Boetticher, Anthony Mann, and Fassbinder.
1979
Teaches film lecture course that contrasts films from 1930s with those of 1970s. Uses material for lecture at Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1980
One-person exhibition at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia; included in UCSD faculty exhibition.
1981
One-person exhibition at Mira Costa College, Oceanside, California, and group exhibition “19 Artists: Emergent Americans” at Exxon National Exhibit, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
1982
Interview with editors and Jean-Pierre Gorin published in April edition of Cahiers du Cinéma; Farber painting “A Dandy’s Gesture” (1977) appears on cover. Accidentally sets fire to wife’s studio and is incarcerated in campus police station after altercation with campus policeman. Incident results in conviction for resisting arrest; sentenced to teach 40 hours of writing classes to pre-freshman students. Concurrent exhibitions at Oil and Steel Gallery in New York; Diane Brown, Washington, D.C.; and Janus Gallery, Los Angeles.
1983
One-person exhibition at Larry Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles. Awarded plaque for film scholarship by Los Angeles Film Circle. Work included in California Current at L.A. Louver, Venice, California. Car journey through northern Spain; visit leads to three weeks of intensive Madrid–Barcelona street drawings.
1984
Exhibits at Quint Gallery, San Diego, where works juxtapose cutouts with intricate narratives.
1985
Commences lecture series at UCSD dealing with domesticity in all cultures, much of which is absorbed into diaristic paintings. One-person exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
1986
Gorin makes film Routine Pleasures about Farber. Farber and Patterson take car trip from Barcelona to Rome looking at everything from Catalonian Romanesque murals to the “Piero Trail.”
1987
Retires from teaching at UCSD in order to concentrate on painting.
1988–91
Has series of one-person exhibitions in the late 1980s and early ’90s, including shows at the Texas Gallery, Houston (1988); Krygier-Landau Gallery, Los Angeles (1990); Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan, (1991); and Quint Gallery (1990 and 1991). Spends time drawing in Paris and Brittany in 1989. Begins to develop series of black-and-white paintings. Receives Telluride Film Festival award for contribution to film (1990).
1992–96
First exhibition of Farber’s black-and-white paintings at Mandeville Gallery, University of California, San Diego in 1992. Major museum exhibition at Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, featuring work from 1984 to 1993. New work is shown at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh in 1994. Paul Schrader makes short film, Untitled: New Blue (1995), an introspective look at Farber’s painting of the same title. Farber is honored with award for his body of work in criticism by PEN Center. Trip to Italy with Patterson to visit Lombardy and Po Valley. From 1993 to 1996 Farber has important series of gallery exhibitions in New York at Rosa Esman Gallery (1993), Frumkin-Adams Gallery (1994), and Charles Cowles Gallery (1996).
1998
Negative Space reissued by Da Capo Press with a preface by Robert Walsh and new material, including collaborative reviews written with Patterson, triggering revival of interest in both Farber’s paintings and criticism. Continues showing new paintings at Quint Contemporary Art, with schedule of one exhibition per year. Returns to exploring black-and-white backgrounds, looser paint handling.
1999
Chris Petit releases short film Negative Space, a documentary about Farber’s way of looking at movies, which is shown on BBC and at film festivals. Texts by and about Farber are featured in Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media in April. Receives “Special Award for Distinguished Contribution to Film Criticism” from New York Film Critics Circle, and is introduced by J. Hoberman.
2000
Eleven essays by Farber reprinted in Cinema Nation, a compendium of the best film criticism published in The Nation. Work included in Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition “Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900–2000.”
2001
Painting “Cézanne avait écrit” (1986) used as poster art for 39th New York Film Festival. “A Tribute to Manny Farber” organized by Artforum and the New School Graduate Writing Program, with talks and commentary by Jonathan Crary, Kent Jones, Jim Lewis, Greil Marcus, Robert Polito, Luc Sante, Robert Walsh, and Stephanie Zacharek.
2002
Feature article in Artforum by Robert Polito addresses connections between Farber’s paintings and criticism; excerpts from previous year’s tribute also reproduced.
2003
“Two for the Road,” first-ever joint exhibition with Patricia Patterson at Athenaeum Music and Art Library, La Jolla, California. Farber honored with Mel Novikoff Award “bestowed annually on an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema” at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where he is interviewed onstage by Robert Polito. Publication of French edition of Negative Space as L’ Espace Negatif by P.O.L., whose journal Trafic has previously printed translations of Farber’s articles. Opening of Farber’s major retrospective “Manny Farber: About Face” at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Solo exhibition at Quint Gallery, La Jolla.
2004
“About Face” moves to Museum of Contemporary Art, Austin, Texas, and then to P.S.1 Contemporary Art, Long Island City, New York. Lectures with Patricia Patterson on Maurice Pialat at Film Society of Lincoln Center. Speaks at symposium on L’Espace Negatif, Centre Pompidou in Paris; other participants include Patrice Rollet, Raymond Bellour, Robert Walsh, Brice Matthieussent, Chris Petit, and Patricia Patterson. On Detour with Manny Farber, film by Paul Alexander Juutilainen, is shown on public television.
2006
“Manny Farber and All That Jazz,” a tribute to Manny Farber, at University of California, San Diego, organized by Jean-Pierre Gorin, with appearances by Gorin, Tom Luddy, Robert Polito, Edith Kramer, Kent Jones, John Mark Harris, Sheldon Nodelman, Robert Walsh, and Jonathan Crary. Solo exhibition, Quint Gallery, La Jolla.
2007
Featured in American Academy of Arts and Letters (New York) Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts.
2008
Solo exhibition, “Drawing Across Time,” Quint Gallery, La Jolla. Manny Farber dies at home in Leucadia, California, on August 18.