By Sandra Schulman
An unexpected near-death experience during the early days of the pandemic has yielded a remarkable series of portraits, drawn by the patient.
Donald Farnsworth, an artist who owns a fine art studio that makes vintage paper from Italian Renaissance era techniques, was traveling in Italy in 2022, when he came down with a life-threatening case of COVID-19. He was admitted to the Maggiore Hospital in Parma, Italy, and was confined for five weeks.
During that uncertain time, he took cellphone pictures of the doctors, nurses, fellow patients and caregivers at the hospital. When he returned to good health and was released, he made a series of portraits of them on his handmade paper.
The exquisite portraits that resulted, Donald Farnsworth: The Parma Portraits are on view through Oct. 26 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. They pay homage to the doctors and health-care professionals who risked their lives to save his during the height of the pandemic. These are contemporary drawings, but Farnsworth’s mixed media drawings were made using traditional techniques.
“He is quite a technical genius,” says senior curator Kathleen Goncharov. “He runs Magnolia Editions, which he and his wife founded. He is an inventor. The paper that he made, he actually tracked down a Tuscan sheep in their DNA in order to come up with exactly the papers that Leonardo da Vinci would have used centuries ago.”
Sheep play a crucial role in papermaking because their wool is one of the primary sources of natural fibers used to create pulp, which is the base material for paper production. He sourced the sheep from the region in Italy where Leonardo lived.
“He is a master paper maker,” Goncharov says. “I’ve watched him do it, but I can’t explain the technical side of it. He tried to completely reproduce 16th-century paper. As the owner of Magnolia Editions, they produce all kinds of things. They produce tapestries, and he will work with artists to get each little pixel of the right color for that tapestry, something he invented.
“And they do ceramics. The Second Avenue subway station in New York, they did the Chuck Close ceramic mural there. They do all kinds of work,” she said.
“I knew that he was an artist, but I didn’t really know he was practicing,” she adds. “I mean, he doesn’t know himself as an artist usually. But I happened to talk to his wife who said, ‘Oh, he almost died in Italy.’ He made these wonderful portraits that she sent me.
“I said, ‘Oh, you have to show this here. They’re gorgeous and interesting. And our audience has a lot of doctors here.’”
As a celebration of the doctors and professionals who saved his life the portraits are dignified and sensitive and classical on the textured paper. One in particular of “Letizia” stands out for its use of color in her red sweater and the green edging on her shirt.
“The pandemic was a really world-changing event,” Goncharov says. “So here is something that really is dealing with that pandemic in a very beautiful and creative way. It’s also making heroes of these health professionals, which were not just as far away as these were, but all around the world. This is the whole series, and there’s a book with it, a full color catalog.”
“In the book he tells the stories of all these people, the whole story of his sickness, and the people who were around, the people who saved his life, but also the people who visited, and helped him. Also, the things that his wife went through because she was there with him, but not able to visit because it was COVID, so her experience was living in Parma for that length of time.”
“It was a strange version of COVID. It really affected his blood; he was there a long time. But he recovered, obviously, and, it’s been a long struggle, even after he recovered. This series was his thank-you, and something he felt he needed to get out of this awful experience,” Goncharov said.
If you go
Donald Farnsworth: The Parma Portraits is on view at the Boca Raton Museum of Art through Oct. 26. Admission: $16, seniors, $12. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, except Thursday, open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. 501 Plaza Real (Mizner Park), Boca Raton. Call 561-392-2500 or visit www.bocamuseum.org.