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.
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. He was the Rootstein Hopkins Research Professor of Drawing at the University of the Arts London from 2004-2017.
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.
Born: 1950 in London
Nationality: British
Elected RA: 21 May 1998
Honorary officer: Honorary Curator 1999
Gender: Male
Visit Stephen Farthing RA (b. 1950)'s website
Preferred media: Painting
Stephen Farthing RA
The Understudy, 1983, 1983
Oil & beeswax on cottonduck
Stephen Farthing RA
The bones of the lower leg and foot, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The anal canal, the sphincter and the rectum, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The penis, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The components of male sperm, 2016
pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The heart and the cardiopulmonary circulation, 2016
Pen, ink and gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The lumbosacral plexus, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The brachial plexus, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The optic nerves and visual pathways, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The wax-infusion method, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
Stephen Farthing RA
The cerebral ventricles, 2016
Pen, ink and white gouache on tinted paper
2016 A Comparative History of Native America, Plimsole Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart
2014 -15 Titian’s Ghosts, Ham House, London
2010 The Back Story, Artists’ Laboratory, the Royal Academy, London
2010 Drawing Gallery, Shropshire
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
Drawing Gallery, Leintwardine
2009 Purdy Hicks, London
2007 The Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland
2006 Chelsea Futurespace, London
2003 Amagenesett Applied Arts, New York
2000 Lewis Elton Gallery, University of Surrey
Otemae Centre for the Arts, Otemae University, Kansai
1999 St Paul’s School, London
De Monfort University Gallery, Leicester
Mary Ogilvy Gallery, St Anne’s College, Oxford
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)
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford
British Council, London
Arts Council of Great Britain
Royal College of Art, London
Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
National Portrait Gallery, London
Government Art Collection
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
Artists' Laboratory No.2: Stephen Farthing, RA The Back Story
2010
Item RAA/PRE/5/2/476
[draft] Notice of election results for new Academicians - Richard Deacon, Stephen Farthing and David Mach
26 May 1998
Item RAA/PRE/2/1/329
Artists' Laboratory 02: Stephen Farthing, RA The Back Story, [no folder]
Nov 2010
File RAA/PRE/2/2/150