John Farnsworth

John Farnsworth

1941 – 2026

John Farnsworth believed you could say anything with three colors. He called it the (Un)Limited Palette. Rather than a limitation, the constraint was a philosophy. What you leave out matters as much as what you keep. He lived that way. Born in Williams, Arizona in 1941, he grew up in the shadow of the Navajo and Hopi Reservations. At nine years old, visiting his mother's birthplace of Taos, he walked into the galleries there and knew what he would become. Self-taught, he drew and painted while serving in the Army. Farnsworth painted full time from 1967 onward. His early years were devoted to the Navajo and Pueblo people, a subject he pursued with personal intimacy. Becoming a trader on the Navajo Reservation, and Preparator at the Museum of Northern Arizona under Kachina authority Barton Wright. The Kachina paintings became the work he is best known for, alongside his monumental horse and cattle compositions. His major commissions included Stage, a twenty-by-thirty-foot mural of a Wells Fargo stagecoach, now in the permanent collection of the City of Phoenix. He taught workshops across France, Mexico, Spain, Peru, and the American Southwest. From 2010 to 2014, he posted a painting a day on his blog, A Farnsworth A Day. He and his wife Thea made their home in a century-old adobe in Taos they called Ravenstrack in Ranchos de Taos. He traveled slow, packed light, and loved life.

Memorial service will be held on Friday August 28, 2026 at 2pm in the Evergreen Chapel of DeVargas Funeral Home of Taos.  Burial will take place on Monday August 31, 2026 at 11am at the Taos State Veterans Cemetery. 

The family of John Farnsworth has entrusted the care of their loved one to the caring staff of DeVargas Funeral Home of Taos. www.devargastaos.com 1-866-657-4019