About
John Farnsworth on scissor lift, painting mural.
"Collectors make me smile! I was delighted to hear about the pleasure my work brings to one couple who said their morning coffee beside a large FARNSWORTH gets their morning off to a perfect day." -John
1941-2026
In his sixty year career, as an artist, painter and photographer John Farnsworth exhibited and taught both nationally and internationally. A native of the great American Southwest, he lived and worked in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Mexico, Argentina, and Guatemala.
A prolific painter of many subjects ranging from landscapes to still-lifes, from portraits and character studies to buildings and wildlife, to trains and dogs. He specialized in depicting the Navajo and Pueblo people of Arizona and New Mexico until 1977, when he began painting the works for which he is now best known, along with his ongoing series of Kachina paintings, his larger than life horse and cattle compositions.
Farnsworth was a self taught artist, or, as he liked to say, “self teaching”. “I did”, he says, “enroll briefly in the Famous Artists School’s correspondence course”, he explains, “but dropped out when I noticed the bold type admonitions ‘You learn to draw by drawing’ and ‘You learn to paint by painting’. “ I decided that was the best advice I could ask for and I’ve been following it ever since”.
His compositions feature tightly cropped subjects distilled down to their essence by eliminating the extraneous. He was a meticulous fine-line realist. Sloe-eyed cows and tawny horses with cascading manes are portraits of pure animal essence. You can almost feel the trampled hardness of the dry and dusty soil, overlain with pungent animal smells.
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Born in Arizona in 1941, John Farnsworth was a mature artist and a painter's painter. Prolific in both watercolor and oils, Farnsworth painted with a contemporary eye and a traditional hand.
His subject matter is without limit. From travel and landscapes to animal portraits, from still lifes to Kachinas, he paints his unique response to whatever catches his eye.
Self taught, he worked from life, sketches, photographs, and video.
John painted using a limited palette that he calls the (Un)Limited Palette, consisting of just one of each of the primaries in watercolor, with white added when working in oil.
He painted full time since 1967 and his works range from small pencil drawings to the twenty by thirty foot mural "Stage" now in the collection of the City of Phoenix, Arizona.
Farnsworth taught workshops in France, Mexico, Spain, Peru, Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Canyon de Chelly, Tucson and Tubac, Arizona. These workshops covered such diverse subjects as Computers for Artists, Beginning Watercolor, The Horse in Three Colors, the (Un)Limited Palette, and Digital Photography.
From August, 2010, to November, 2014, he created a daily painting for his blog, A Farnsworth A Day. Many of those images are now available as fine art reproductions.
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A home filled with art reveals the sophistication and intelligence of the people that live there. Children should grow up with artwork. This will help their creativity and imagination and they will remember their favorite art for life. Our fine art reproductions help families bring art into their lives and create lovely memories and daily joy.
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