Sale 213 Lot 450

JOHN ALEXANDER HARRISON NOBLE
American, 1913 - 1983
Dying in the English Kills, Mast & Man #2, circa 1967
Lithograph on paper. Pencil titled and signed at base. Framed. Not examined out of frame.
Image size: 11 15/16 × 15 13/16 in.
$200-300

ARTIST PROFILE: John Alexander Harrison Noble (1913–1983) was a premier American maritime artist whose work serves as a definitive visual chronicle of the New York Harbor and the twilight of the "Age of Sail." The son of painter John "Wichita Bill" Noble, he arrived in the United States from Paris in 1919 and developed a lifelong bond with the Staten Island waterfront, working as a professional sailor on schooners and in marine salvage for over two decades. Noble is best known for his collection of 79 masterful lithographs, which he created within a singular, floating studio constructed from salvaged ship components and anchored at the "ship graveyard" in Bayonne, New Jersey. His art is distinguished by its dramatic chiaroscuro and technical precision, capturing everything from the skeletal remains of wooden vessels to the industrial grit of modern harbor life. Today, his extensive historical and artistic legacy is curated by the Noble Maritime Collection at Snug Harbor, and his impact on New York’s nautical culture is commemorated by a Staten Island Ferry bearing his name.