John A. Noble

1913-1983

American (New York, New York)

Born in Paris in 1913, John A. Noble is the son of the noted American painter, John "Wichita Bill" Noble. He spent his early years in the studios of his father and his father's contemporaries, innovative artists and writers of the early part of the 20th century. He moved with his family to the States in 1919. After graduating from the Friends Seminary in New York City, Noble returned to France in 1931, where he studied for one year at the University of Grenoble and met his wife and lifetime companion. When he returned to New York, he studied for one year at the National Academy of Design.

From 1928 until 1945, Noble worked as a seaman on schooners and in marine salvage. In 1941, Noble began to build his floating studio out of parts of vessels he salvaged, and from 1946 on he worked as a full-time artist, setting off from his studio in a rowboat to explore New York Harbor. These explorations resulted in a unique and exacting record of Harbor history in which its rarely documented characters, industries, and vessels are faithfully recorded.