The Plain Dealer | Steven Litt  |  May 04, 2015

Jane Farver, former Spaces director and Cleveland Museum of Art educator, has died at age 68

CLEVELAND, Ohio ? Clevelanders in the visual arts are mourning the death in Venice, Italy, last week of Jane Farver, retired former director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who previously served as educator at the Cleveland Museum of Art and as director of Spaces from 1981 to 1985.

ARTnews reported that Farver died of a heart attack at age 68.

William Robinson, curator of modern European art at the Cleveland museum, described Farver in an email Sunday as "a pioneering champion of contemporary art in Cleveland."

He wrote that, "Jane and her husband, artist John Moore, who worked in the Education Department at the museum, were highly influential and much admired members of the art community here.

"The loss will be deeply felt by all of us who knew and who have remained in contact with Jane and John. They are outstanding examples of Clevelanders who have made a positive contribution to national culture."

Susan Channing, who succeeded Farver as director of Spaces, a nonprofit gallery that focuses on experimental work by emerging and midcareer artists, wrote on the gallery's website that Farver had been aligned with the gallery since its infancy.

"Jane ignited the spark for artists that the community needed," Channing wrote. "It was there that she cut her teeth, believing in and working with artists. Just as Jane launched artists in Cleveland, SPACES provided a springboard for her own international career."

Channing said she'd always miss Farver's "quick, acerbic wit, empathy for artists, and disdain for equivocation. Her leadership of SPACES inspired all of us who followed her."

According to ARTnews, Farver left the MIT List center in 2011 after 12 years in which she organized exhibitions with numerous international artists.

After leaving Spaces, Farver held positions at the Alternative Museum in New York, the Tomiko Liguori Gallery and the Lehman College Art Gallery at the City University of New York.

She was director of exhibitions at the Queens Museum from 1992 to 1999, before joining the MIT List center. After her retirement, Farver was working at a consulting director for U.S. Biennial Inc., which supports the Prospect triennial in New Orleans, and working on other projects, ARTnews reported.

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