Jerry Farnsworth, Circus Lady, oil on canvas, 30 by 20 inches. Signed lower left, Farnsworth.
Jerry Farnsworth and his wife Helen Sawyer Farnsworth were both Florida artists with national reputations. Both were members of the National Academy of Design. Helen, who exhibited under her own name, never used her married name professionally. She loved to paint nature, landscapes, still life’s and flowers, while Jerry was known for his portraits. He was commissioned for nine portraits for the cover of Time magazine and 22 portraits for Fortune magazine.
The couple lived on Cape Cod in summer and Scarsdale, New York in winter until 1941 when they began spending winters in Sarasota, out on Siesta Key, then a near wilderness. In 1949 the Farnsworth’s built a main studio on Higel Avenue on Siesta Key. Marcia Corbino, in her book Helen Sawyer, Memories of a Morning Star, notes, “The school became so popular that there was generally a waiting list.”
Jerry Farnsworth, Sunday Morning, oil on canvas, 23 3/4 by 19 1/2 inches. Signed lower left, Farnsworth.
The American Artist, December 1949 said of Farnsworth, “Jerry Farnsworth ranks high in favor with those who know and love good painting. I use the term ‘good painting’ in its traditional connotation; the kind of painting that inherits the ideals and the technical competence of the old masters… He believes in tradition but paints in a way that is of his time and that is modern in the best sense. The verdict of Farnsworth’s achievements rests, of course, with posterity, but contemporary opinion places him among the foremost of America’s portrait and figure painters.”
Farnsworth, Jerry. Madame Kovar, Ringling Lion Tamer, 1944, Oil on canvas, 35 by 30 inches, ex Vickers Collection.
Born in Dalton, Georgia, Farnsworth moved to New York, and at the age of sixteen, joined the U.S. Navy during World War I. After the war he studied on Cape Cod with Charles Hawthorne. Here he met and married artist Helen Sawyer, the daughter of artist Wells Sawyer. Farnsworth taught art at the Art Students League and the Grand Central School of Art in New York. He was elected to the National Academy in 1938 and was Carnegie Visiting Professor of Art, at the University of Illinois. Farnsworth opened the Farnsworth School of Art in North Truro, Cape Cod. As a noted American portrait and figure painter, Farnsworth participated in scores of national juried exhibitions, over a career that spanned more than sixty years. Farnsworth published a book Painting with Jerry Farnsworth. His works are represented in the permanent collections of the New York Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Houston Museum, and the Delgado Museum in New Orleans.
Jerry Farnsworth, Scarf and Lemons, 1932, oil on panel, 24 by 19 1/2 inches. Signed lower right, Jerry Farnsworth.
Born: December 31, 1895, Dalton, Georgia. Died: December 8. 1982, Sarasota. Education: Corcoran School of Art; Charles W. Hawthorne; Clinton Peters. Membership: National Academy of Art; Provincetown Art Association; Salmagundi Club; Washington Art Club; Sarasota Art Association; Art League of Manatee County; Florida Federation of Art; Ten Painters of Washington; Florida Artist Group. Exhibits: Art Club of Washington, 1924-25; Washington Society of Art, 1924, 2nd prize; National Academy of Design, Third Hallgarten Prize, 1925, Hallgarten Prize, 1927; Golden State Prize, Grand Central Gallery, 1928; Painting of Sara Delano Roosevelt, cover Time Magazine, March 6, 1933; Sarasota Art Association, December 1941, portraits; Sarasota Art Association, March 1944, portraits, Mary Cooper, Sunday Morning (A girl in pig tails reading the Sunday funnies); Sarasota Art Association, South Palm Avenue, January 1945, Interior (Showing his wife Helen Sawyer painting Halloween.) Head of a Young Girl; Sarasota Art Association, Contemporary American Paintings, Mira Mar Gallery, South Palm Avenue, February 1945, Philomena (a young girl in a brown velvet jacket); Sarasota Art Association, Members Annual Exhibit, March 1945, portrait, Marion Lawrence Cutler, Nude Back; Sarasota Art Association, Members Exhibit, January 1948; Third Southeastern Annual, High Museum, Atlanta, October 1948, special mention for an oil, Pensive Girl; Sarasota Art Association, Cain Building, December 1948, Dancer; Sarasota Art Association, winter, 1949, Lois, Helen, Pensive Girl; Sarasota Art Association, 25th Anniversary Year, Members Show, January 1951, Lois Steinmetz, Alexander Bloch, (Musical Director, Florida West Coast Orchestra) Harold Slingerlands; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., December 1951, Circus Girl; Florida Artist Group, 3rd Annual Members Exhibit, Ft. Harrison Hotel, Clearwater, shown under auspices of the Clearwater Art Group, March 1952, black & white drawings and prints, Illinois Corn, Portuguese Farm, Snipe and Shell, Fernstone and Dead Crab, Torso; Ringling Museum of Art, Fifty Florida Painters, oil, Standing with Reluctant Feet Where the Brook and River Meet; Florida Artist Group, 6th Annual Circuit, Palm Beach Art League, April 1955, Patty; Art League of Manatee County, All Members Exhibit, October 1955, 209 Ninth St. W. Bradenton, Checkered Blouse, Fern Stone and Dead Crab; Florida Artists Group, 5th Annual, 1955, special mention; Art League of Manatee County, Members Exhibit, February 1956, honorable mention, Julie; Florida Federation of Art, 30th Annual Exhibit, West Palm Beach, 1956, Sybil; Art League of Manatee County, 21st Annual Members Exhibition, February 1957, honorable mention; Florida Artist Group, 9th Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1958-1959, an oil, Green Mint and Cross-eyed Owl; Art League of Manatee County, Member’s Annual Juried Exhibit, March 1959, Dead Apple Tree, Goshawk and Wine Glass; Sarasota Art Association, Flowers and Landscape Exhibition, January 1959, Dead Apple Tree; Sarasota Art Association, 9th Annual National Exhibition, Ringling Museum, March 1959, Cat and Cradle; Governor’s All Florida Art Show, Ringling Museum, January 9-February 2, 1960, oils, Girl in a Straw Hat, Frances, pencil, Model Resting; Sarasota Art Association, Members’ Annual Juried Exhibition, February 1960, Driftwood and Ribbon; Art League of Manatee County, Members Annual, February 1960, Peter (Stella Coler’s grandson in a striped shirt.); Sarasota Art Association, April 1960; Ringling Museum, Music Is Not For Everyone, Mandolin & Old Music, 1961. Florida Artist Group, 12th Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1961-62, an oil, Driftwood and Green Bottle; Florida Artist Group, 14th Annual Exhibition, 1963-1964 at Tampa Art Institute, an oil, Frances; Many exhibits in Massachusetts, New York, Washington, and Florida.
