To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of artist John A. Noble (1913-83), the Noble Maritime Collection presents Tides of 100 Years.
The exhibition features family memorabilia, photographs, and art that describe Noble’s career. Rare pieces, including plein air drawings he did from his rowboat while studying New York Harbor, as well are formal drawings, photographs, and paintings, highlight it.
Eccentric features of his former home at 270 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, shed light on Noble’s personality and many talents. His basement workshop and the interior of his home, with maritime artifacts and tools he collected and lamps and furniture he made, have been recreated.
Noble and his wife Susan Ames Noble decided to “burn their bridges,” and devote their lives to his artistic career, and the exhibition focuses on their single-minded devotion to it. “No teaching. No retreat,” was their philosophy. Susan was Noble’s advisor, agent, secretary, and companion on his explorations. “It took Sue and me about 10 years to know New York,” Noble said. “We rowed, we walked, we bicycled—about ten years. Then we had a little fundamental idea of the vast thing.”
The exhibition also includes a new documentary called Tides of 100 Years: Remembering John A. Noble, by Michael McWeeney.
Funding for the exhibition was provided, in part, by the Trustees and members of the Noble Maritime Collection, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Michael McWeeney is the recipient of a DCA Premier Grant from the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI), with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
The Tides of 100 Years exhibition will remain on view through 2014.
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