Stephen Farthing RA

Born: 16 September 1950, London, UK
Elected RA: 21 May 1998
Category of Membership: Painter

Stephen Farthing studied at St Martin’s School of Art, London from 1969 to 1973 before taking his Masters Degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London from 1973 to 1976. Here he received an Abbey Major Scholarship, taking him to The British School at Rome for a year in 1976.

Stephen Farthing, 'Boucher: the back story', 2009 Oil on canvas, 207 x173 cm. Photo: S Farthing

His extensive teaching career began as a Lecturer in Painting at Canterbury College of Art from 1977 to 1979), after which he was a Tutor in painting at the Royal College of Art, London from 1980 to 1985. He went on to become Head of Painting (1985-7) and Head of Department of Fine Art (1987-9) at West Surrey College of Art and Design. From 1990 he was Ruskin Master at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Professorial Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford until 2000, when he moved to New York in order to take the position of Executive Director of The New York Academy of Art, Manhattan. In 2004 he was appointed as the Rootstein Hopkins Research Professor of Drawing at the University of the Arts London.

Stephen Farthing has exhibited extensively in solo shows since his first solo exhibition held at the Royal College of Art Gallery, London in 1977. His work, representing Britain, was shown at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1989, leading to many further solo shows around the world. He has also participated in many group exhibitions since 1975, including the John Moores Liverpool Exhibitions, in which he was a Prize Winner in 1976, 1980, 1982, 1987, 1991, 1993, 1997 and 1999.

Farthing was Artist in Residence at the Hayward Gallery, London in 1989. He was elected Royal Academician in 1998 and in 2000 was made an Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He lives and works in New York, USA.

Recent solo exhibitions
2010 Drawing Gallery, Shropshire
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2010 Drawing Gallery, Leintwardine
2009 Purdy Hicks, London
2007 The Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2006 Chelsea Futurespace, London
2003 Amagenesett Applied Arts, New York
2000 Lewis Elton Gallery, University of Surrey, UK
Otemae Centre for the Arts, Otemae University, Kansai, Japan
1999 St Paul’s School, London
De Monfort University Gallery, Leicester
Mary Ogilvy Gallery, St Anne’s College, Oxford
1998 The Cut Gallery, London
1996 A.T. Kearney, London
Anne Berthoud Gallery, London
1995 The Cut Gallery, London
1994 British Council, Kyoto, Japan
Brantwood House, Cumbria
The Cut Gallery, London
Coram Gallery, London
1993 Spacex, Exeter
Reading Unversity Gallery, Reading
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
1990 Paco Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
National Museum of Art, Montevideo, Uruguay
The Minories Art Gallery, Colchester
Sloane Racotta Gallery, Mexico City
Museo de Monterrey, Monterrey
Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City
City Museum, Montevideo, Uruguay

Recent commissions
1999 Portrait of the past and present historians Eric Hobsbawm, Rodney Hilton, Sir Keith Thomas, Sir John Elliot, Lawrence Stone and Jean Thirsk (commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, London)
1998 Topographical painting of Dorset (commissioned by the Dorchester Hospital Trust)
1997 Printed digital scan of oil painting for the façade of the Embassy during Spring 1997 (commissioned by the British Embassy, Paris)
Carpet design (commissioned by the Grosvenor Estate)
1996 ‘The Knowledge: Bloomsbury’ (painting commissioned by BUPA, London)
1993 Painting of the buildings of the Oxford University Press (commissioned by Oxford University Press, Oxford)

Public collections
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford
British Council, London
Arts Council of Great Britain
South East Arts Collection, Eastbourne
Royal College of Art, London
Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery
Towner Art Gallery and Museum
University of Liverpool Art Collection
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Leicester City Museum
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
National Portrait Gallery, London
Bradford Art Galleries and Museums
Government Art Collection
Maclaurin Art Gallery
Sheffield City Art Gallery
St Edmund Hall, Oxford
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
University College, Oxford
University of Surrey, Guildford
Richard Wilson Arts Centre, Aberystwyth
British Council, Kyoto, Japan
Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan
Itaiyard, Kyoto, Japan
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Otemae University, Kansai, Japan
Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City
British Council, Mexico

Contact details for further information
Email membershipoffice@royalacademy.org.uk

• Royal Academy of Arts