Manny Farber

Manny Farber (1917-2008) was both an acclaimed artist and an internationally-respected film critic. After completing his studies at UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, he worked as a painter and carpenter. His journalistic career began as an art critic. In 1942 he moved to New York City and took a post as a film critic for The New Republic. He contributed art criticism to Time, The New Republic and The Nation throughout the 1940s and 1950s. In 1970, he left New York to teach art and film criticism at UCSD. Once in Southern California, he focused on painting and teaching, retiring from criticism altogether in 1977. Often influenced by his favorite filmmakers, Farber’s painting is held in equally high regard with his written work. The New York Times dubbed him “the greatest still life painter of his generation.”