Robert Farber

Robert Farber, an artist whose installations and paintings dealt with AIDS

Farber was born and brought up in Hartsdale, N.Y. After earning a degree in theater in 1970 at Brandeis University, where he initially majored in art, he spent a year doing graduate work at the London School of Dramatic Art in England. He later appeared in Off Broadway and repertory productions and taught theater at the State University College at Purchase, N.Y.

In 1981 Farber returned to art studies, this time at the Art Students League, and in the mid-80's he began exhibiting his work. In "I Thought I Had Time," a one-man show exhibited at Artist's Space in 1992, Mr. Farber created an installation that used historical texts and interviews with AIDS sufferers to draw comparisons between AIDS and the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century. The installation included nine paintings from his "Western Blot Series," named for one of the tests used to detect H.I.V. Reviewing the installation for The New York Times, Holland Cotter called it a work of "immense restraint and poise."