PROVINCETOWN ARTIST REGISTRY

Emily Farnham's art education was extensive. She studied
at two universities and five art schools. However, the most
influential teacher to her was Hans Hofmann, with whom she
studied both in Provincetown and in New York. Read book review of Emily Farnham's "Hofmann - Abstraction as Plastic Expression and Notes Made in Hofmann's Classes by Deborah J. Carr "Emily Farnham Remembers Hans Hofmann" (Ptown Women, 1999) - pdf document, page 1, page 2.

Following a forty year academic career during which she taught painting, drawing, design and art history to approximately 8,000 students on eight campuses in as many states, she retired to Provincetown in 1980. During the period that she was chairman of the art history department of East Carolina University, in addition to such undergraduate courses as Twentieth Century, Prehistoric and Primitive Art History, she taught graduate seminars on Picasso, Cubism, Art Nouveau, the Armory Show, the Steiglitz Group, Pop Art and Modern Sculpture.

In 1972, her biography Charles Demuth, Behind a Laughing Mask (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971) was nominated for a National Book Award, following which she was invited to become a member of PEN. From 1973-1980 she served on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

During her late career she produced abstract and semi-abstract paintings, as well as writing a volume of the notes she made in Hofmann's classes, and another book unfinished at her death on an analytical study (with illustrations) of the abstract structure resident in some of the great paintings of the past.

She held an M.A. degree in watercolor painting and a Ph.D. in the history of art from Ohio State University.

Her work is held in many public and private collections, including the Town of Provincetown, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and Columbus Museum of Art (Ohio).