Anne Noble

Anne Noble (born Wanganui, 1954) is a New Zealand photographer.^[1]

Education

Noble attended high school at the Roman Catholic Girls' College, Erskine College, in Island Bay, Wellington, and Wanganui Girls College.^[2] She completed a MFA (Honours - 1st class) at the Elam School of Fine Arts in 1983.^[3]

Work

Noble is known for working in photographic series. Her first major exhibition, The Wanganui, opened at the Sarjeant Gallery in 1982 and toured to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland, Hamilton and Te Manawa in Palmerston North. ^[3]

'In the presence of angels – photographs of the contemplative life' (1988-1990) is a series of photographs documenting life inside a London convent. Noble lived with the Benedictine nuns in the silent order for an extended period.^[4]

'In My Father’s Garden' is a series of photographs that follow the artist’s father’s death, while the 'Hidden Lives' series capture the lives of elderly intellectually disabled people and their carers.^[5]

The series 'Ruby’s Room' (1998-2007) features close-up images of the photographer’s daughter’s mouth. The artist says that many of the best childhood moments go unrecorded, and that many of these ‘relate to pleasures and play around the mouth, moments of defiance and triumph, like managing to blow a really good bubble with bubble gum ... I wanted to magnify the colour, the spontaneity, the life, the fun and play, and all the things that I enjoyed as a mother.’^[6]

In 2001 the Dunedin Public Art Gallery staged a major retrospective of Noble’s work, which toured to City Gallery Wellington and the Auckland Art Gallery.^[7][8][9]

Since 2001, Noble has been researching and visiting the Antarctic, and has produced several series of works on this subject, including ‘Antarctica Iceblink’ and ‘Antarctica Whiteout’.^[10]

Recently, Noble’s work has investigated the honeybee and its place in our world, research instigated by her time on a Fulbright fellowship based at Columbia College in Chicago as their international artist in residence. Her first exhibition on this subject, Nature Study, was held at Bartley+Company in Wellington in 2015.^[11]

Awards and recognitions

Noble has held several artist residencies, including the Tylee Cottage Residency in 1990, Artist in Residence University of Canterbury in 1993, the Antarctic Arts Fellowship in 2001 and 2009.^[3]

She was awarded the US National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Award in 2008 and the Massey University Research Medal in 2009.^[3]

In 2003 Noble was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to photography. In 2009 she received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate award. In 2013 Massey University awarded Noble the title of Distinguished Professor.^[12]

Publications

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• Anne Noble, The Wanganui : photographs of a river, Wanganui: Sarjeant Gallery, 1982
• Anne Noble, In the presence of angels : photographs of the contemplative life, Wanganui: Sarjeant Gallery, 1989
• Justin Paton, Lydia Wevers and Anne Kennedy, Anne Noble: States of Grace, Wellington: Victoria University Press and Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2001. ISBN 0864734255
• Anne Noble, Iceblink, Auckland: Clouds Publishing, 2011
• Bill Manhire, Anne Noble, Norman Meehan, Hannah Griffin, These Rough Notes, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2012

References