CITY LIFE

Phoenix Gazette

April 10 - 16, 1985

Schreyer's Arab, far left, Prado Rubens No. 1, at left.

John Farnsworth

"When you paint Rubens' horse, you tend to want to replicate it because it's already so fantastic.”

John Farnsworth is loath to talk about himself. The artist, 44, spends most of his time on his painting, not on seek-and-destroy publicity missions.

"There's all this desperation in this business," he complained, "that I can hardly stand it. I don't object to publicity, but it's not the main thing in my life."

"I guess I think it's unfortunate that paintings aren't like some basic necessity, like sheets and pillow cases," Farnsworth continued. "It's a shame people don't need art, because then you could just go about your business. It's got a sort of correlation with movies -- There are just a handful of actors and a whole lot of movie stars."

Principles are the only thing standing in the way of Farnsworth and vast commercial success. A few years ago, Farnsworth was painting small watercolors and selling them for $500 -- until someone commented that he was giving them away. "My response to that was just to stop doing them," he said. "Besides, I get bogged down."

You could do a lot of things just for the money, he commented, but what would you have?

"You'd have a pile of dollars," he answered his own question, "but

"I haven't resolved these conflicts," Farnsworth said. When you paint Rubens' horse, you tend to want to replicate it because it's already so fantastic."

"I get lost in it," he continued. "There's so many tangled ways to go about it. I love Uccello, but they wouldn't work. They're bordering on being unbelievable already, they're so carousel-like."

What Farnsworth is doing, basically, is taking relatively small and minor sections of great (sometimes not-so-great) works of art and recasting them with a technique that recalls the Dutch and Flemish masters.

"I had all these problems," he explained. "Would you do it like my technique or like theirs? How would you set parameters? If I were Roy Lichtenstein, I'd do it in dots, like a benday pattern. If I were Bill Schenck, I'd posterize it. 

"It could be a painting of my imagined idea of the horse that he painted or it could be a painting of his paint," Farnsworth convoluted. "I have to know well enough so I can defend it all when it's finished."

As yet, the series is unnamed, but no matter. despite the problems of resolution, Farnsworth is enjoying the work. these horses of art legend, with silky manes flying and nostrils flaring, are far more fun to paint than his tired, battered rodeo steeds of a few years ago. He admits that.

"I can play with things that I can't do with regular horses," he said.

Farnsworth pointed out that in David's portrait of Napoleon, the horse goes ignored.

"You know," he said, "sometimes in a movie I like the character actors better than the stars. Nobody gets to see the horse in that painting -- because you're looking at Napoleon. that horse needs to have a painting of its own."

Farnsworth, at the brink of this exciting new direction in his work, is man enough and artist enough to give these once-painted animals new life.

In addition to his latest work, he also has been commissioned to paint a mural for the new library at Judson School. Farnsworth may be reached through Jerre Barber Wick at 994-4137.

they'd be so hollow. I guess I'm this foolish romantic who thinks that someday, someone will actually look at a painting and say, 'Something should be done with this.'"

People these days are actually looking at Farnsworth's work and doing something about the dramatic new direction his paintings are taking. His work is not in any Valley gallery -- basically because he paints only six or eight paintings a year. He is, however, represented by Jerre Barber wick through her company, Art Investment Consultants.

And when Ms. Wick's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry D. Barber, saw Farnsworth's latest paintings, they immediately bought them. Both the works, Schreyer's Arab and Prado Rubens No. 1, hang prominently in the Barbers' Paradise Valley home as part of their collection.

A native of Williams, Farnsworth knocked around for years doing just about every type of work imaginable, although he knew at age 9 that he was an artist -- not going to be one, he was one.

He has been working on it ever since then, and finally was fed up with being a truck driver, a dishwasher, a garbage collector, or a draftsman, and made the jump feet-first into art as a full-time occupation.

"I painted everything, just like everyone else," Farnsworth explained, "but I painted Indians when I started painting full time. It gave me a theme to work in, but I can paint landscapes, animals, people."

"About the only people painting Indians when I started were Brownell McGrew and Paul Dyck, and a couple of others, and the first thing I knew, this bandwagon came thundering up from behind and ran over me," he said with a chuckle.

For about 10 years, Farnsworth painted his Indian subjects, every one he could find. Then, one day, he just stopped. 

That was not the coolest move I could have made," he said. "I have only two of the old collectors or clients who stayed with me since then."

What to paint now? Fortunately for Farnsworth and the way things turned out later, a client who also was a horse owner commissioned the artist for a portrait of his racehorse.

That first commission launched him into the world of animals of all types -- most particularly horses and cows, although he has done elephants and, most recently, a ram for the Phoenix Zoo.

The cow long has been an art subject, from the ancient Sumerians, Indians, and Persians, right down to the Barbizon and 19th-century American artists and even to Andy Warhol. Farnsworth tackled cattle and horses in a different way, a careful way, a way that worked for him.

Now, this recent departure into animals from other paintings -- the horse in Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon, for example -- has him stymied. A series is planned around the two paintings in the Jerry D. Barber collection, but Farnsworth is at a loss about how to continue.

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CITY LIFE