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Farber (Manny) and Patricia Patterson Collection
MSS 0791
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Title: Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson Collection
Creator:
Farber, Manny
Creator:
Patterson, Patricia, 1941-
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0791
Physical Description:
25 Linear feet
(44 archives boxes, 1 shoe box of photographs, 17 flat boxes of artwork, 23 map case folders, 5 rolled drawings in tube storage
and 5 art bin artworks)
Physical Description:
.5 GB
of digital files
Date (inclusive): 1942-2016
Abstract: The collection of UC San Diego's Visual Arts Department faculty Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson. Manny Farber was an American
painter and writer, best known for his film criticism. Patricia Patterson is an American painter and writer, whose work was
greatly inspired by her time in Inishmore, Aran Islands, Ireland. The collection documents their artwork, teaching and writings,
as well as their life and collaboration.
Languages:
English
.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection of UC San Diego's Visual Arts Department faculty members Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson. The materials
document Farber and Patterson's professional careers and include biographical information, writings, course lecture notes,
notebooks, sketchbooks, preparation for exhibits, photographic material, correspondence with friends and colleagues, and art
works such as drawings, sketches, and some oversized sketches and some small paintings.
This content is organized in three groupings: Manny Farber's material, Patricia Patterson's material, and oversized artwork
by both artists arranged by size and type.
Farber's collection is arranged in seven series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL, 2) CALENDARS, NOTEBOOKS AND SKETCHBOOKS, 3) CORRESPONDENCE,
4) FILM SUBJECT FILES, 5) WRITINGS BY AND ABOUT FARBER, 6) EXHIBITS, INSTALLATIONS AND MISCELLANEOUS, and 7) PHOTOGRAPHIC
MATERIALS.
Patterson's collection is arranged in six series: 8) BIOGRAPHICAL, 9) CORRESPONDENCE, 10) NOTEBOOKS AND SKETCHBOOKS, 11) EXHIBITS,
INSTALLATIONS AND WRITINGS, 12) PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIAL, and 13) PROJECTS AND SMALL ARTWORKS.
OVERSIZED ARTWORK is arranged in four series by size/housing type and includes: 14) MAP CASES, 15) TUBE STORAGE, 16) ART BINS
and 17) FLAT BOXES. This collection makes up the bulk of Farber and Patterson's art material and includes sketches, drawings,
exhibition and installation plans, oversized calendars, posters, some archival prints of their work, and a selection of their
paintings. The material spans the breadth of their respective artistic careers from early work in 1960s through 2000s, however
many drawings, sketches and artworks are undated.
Biographical Note: Manny Farber
Emanuel "Manny" Farber was born in Douglas, Arizona in 1917. He was educated at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, California
School of Fine Arts, and the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in San Francisco.
His journalistic career began in New York City where he wrote on films and art for The New Republic, replacing Otis Ferguson
in 1942, until 1946; in 1949 he became Time's film critic. He also wrote about film for The Nation, from 1949-1954; The New
Leader, 1957-59; Cavalier, in 1966; and Artforum, from 1967 through 1971, among other publications. A collection of Farber's
writings on film, Negative Space, was published in 1971, with a Da Capo Press Expanded Edition, Negative Space: Manny Farber
on the Movies, edited by Robert Walsh released in 1998, and Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber (Library
of America), edited by Robert Polito was published in 2009.
Farber's film criticism is often described as iconoclastic. He coined the term "underground film" and his essay, "White Elephant
Art vs. Termite Art", published in
Film Culture in 1962, influenced a generation of film critics. In Roger Ebert's "Manny Farber: In Memory," for the
Chicago Sun Times, he recalled their first meeting at the Venice Film Festival in 1972, where Ebert called Farber "…the most important film
critic in America."
Farber met artist Patricia Patterson, whom he later married, in New York City in 1962. They often collaborated on articles
and frequently attended film festivals.
He joined UC San Diego's Visual Arts Department in 1970 where he taught art and film studies and criticism until his retirement
in 1987. Concurrent to his art and film criticism and teaching, Farber began painting. When asked about the connection between
his paintings and film criticism, Farber is quoted as saying, "The brutal fact is that they're exactly the same thing." In
Farber's "Auteur Series" he paints a collection of work as homages to the films and filmmakers he admired – R.W. Fassbinder,
Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, Sam Peckinpaw, Jean Renoir, and Wim Wenders among other auteurs.
Farber exhibited his artwork in several galleries, in group exhibitions as well as many solo shows. Some highlights of his
one-person exhibitions include: La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (now MCASD) A retrospective exhibition of 20 years of
his work, in 1978; Manny Farber, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1985; About Looking: Manny Farber Paintings
1984-1993 at Brandeis University; the first exhibition of his black and white paintings at the Mandeville Gallery, University
of California, San Diego in 1992; and new work at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh in 1994. Several posthumous exhibits include:
One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art, MOCA; Distant Light, at the Quint Gallery, in 2018; and Manny Farber Works
on Paper, 1968-1980, also at the Quint Gallery, in 2022.
Farber won several awards and fellowships throughout his career, including Guggenheim Fellowships and National Endowment for
the Humanities fellowships from 1976-1979, the Los Angeles Critics Association award in 1982, the Telluride Film Festival
Award for Contribution to Film in 1990, a Pen Center Literary Award in 1995, a National Society of Film Critics, Special Award
for the reprinting of an expanded edition of
Negative Space in 1999, a special 65th Annual New York Film Critics Circle Award in 2000, and the San Francisco International Film Festival,
Mel Novikoff Award in 2002.
He continued painting and drawing the remainder of his life. Farber died at age 91 in 2008. He has a daughter Amanda Farber,
also an artist, from his first marriage.
A good chronology and retrospective of his life and work is published in
Manny Farber, About Face by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 2003, with foreword by Hugh M. Davies, and essays by Jonathan Crary, Stephanie
Hanor, Sheldon Nodelman, Robert Polito and Robert Walsh.
Biographical Note: Patricia Patterson
Patricia Patterson was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1941. In 1958, Patterson began a three-year program in studio design
at the Parsons School of Design, in New York City. She met Farber in New York and began a writing collaboration with him in
1966. Their writings appeared in Artforum, Film Comment, and San Francisco's City magazine in 1975, during Francis Ford Coppola's
reign as publisher.
Prior to joining the faculty in UC San Diego's Visual Arts Department in 1975, Patterson taught art in Catholic grammar schools
in the Bronx and Lower East Side of Manhattan, and at the New School for Social Research, and for six months taught drawing
classes for UC San Diego's Extension program.
Patterson first visited the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland in 1960, and returned several times throughout her
painting career. Her experience living in the Aran Islands, its people, farm life and scenery greatly influenced her painting.
In addition to teaching, Patterson took part in various public art projects in the 1990s, including installations with InSite,
a collaborative contemporary art organization that produced public art in the San Diego-Tijuana region. Her first project
was Union Market Island Front for InSite94. Highlighting her love of color, Patterson reimagined, renovated, and oversaw the
painting of four city blocks, including The New Children's Museum of San Diego. Patterson also collaborated with graphic designer
Leah Roschke on the redesign of the museum's logo. In 1997, Patterson's designed the La Casita project "La Casita en la Colonia
Altamira Calle Río de Janeiro No. 6757" for InSite97. Patterson's La Casita project transformed a small home in Tijuana into
a vibrant space for the surrounding community.
She retired from teaching at UC San Diego in 1999 to focus on travel and other large installation projects. Patterson's An
Enclosed Garden which she designed and planned from the ground up, was chosen for The Color Project in Carlsbad Ranch's Flower
Fields in 2000, which became a permanent garden space.
In 2003, the Atheneum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, California celebrated the works of Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson
with their first exhibition together called Two for the Road: Sketchbooks of Patricia Patterson & Manny Farber. A keepsake
book was produced for the event.
A good chronology of Patterson's work is published in
Patricia Patterson: Here and There, Back and Forth, organized by the Center for Performing Arts, in Escondido, California in 2011, which celebrated Patterson's work with an
exhibit, and includes a collection of essays by Patterson, Kent Jones, Carol Mavor, Robert Polito, and Sally Yard, as well
as two interviews conducted by Robert Walsh in 1989 and 2010.
Two video interviews with Patterson were produced by UCTV. "Robert Polito and Patricia Patterson: Farber on Film" in 2010,
and "Patricia Patterson: Aran Canvas" in 2019. Link here: https://www.uctv.tv/speakers/Patricia-Patterson-87926
Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson Collection. MSS 791. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
Acquired 2016, 2022
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
This collection includes a small number of born-digital files, described in the finding aid.
Containers MC-198-08, Box 49 (folders 1-4), and FB-574 contain fragile materials damaged by fire, as noted in the finding
aid. Researcher use requires permission of the Director of Special Collections.
InSite Archives. MSS 707. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
UC San Diego. University Art Gallery records. RSS 1255. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Farber, Manny -- Archives
Patterson, Patricia, 1941- -- Archives