The Modern Medea (1867) The Price of Blood (1868) The Sibyl (1896)
Thomas Satterwhite Noble (May 29, 1835 – April 27, 1907) was an American painter as well as the first head of the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Noble then returned to the United States in 1859 intending on beginning his art career. Though Kentucky was a slave state not in the Confederacy, with the beginning of the Civil War, as a Southerner, Noble served in the Confederate army from 1862 to 1865. [2] After the war, Noble was paroled to St. Louis and began painting. With the success of his first painting, Last Sale of the Slaves, he received sponsorship from wealthy Northern benefactors for a studio in New York City. Noble lived in New York city from 1866 to 1869, during which time he painted some of his most well-known oil paintings. In 1869, he was invited to become the first head of the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati, Ohio, a post he would hold until 1904. In 1887, the McMicken School of Design became the present-day Art Academy of Cincinnati. During his tenure at the McMicken School of Design, Noble moved briefly to Munich, Germany, where he studied from 1881 to 1883.[1] He retired in 1904 and died in New York City on April 27, 1907. He is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.[3]
Noble's artwork has been exhibited in over 70 exhibitions, both during his lifetime and after his death. Most of his well-known initial works are historical presentations, painted to make strong political and moral commentary. Later in his life he painted many allegorical images, often having his children pose for figures in the paintings. After studying in Munich and towards the end of his life, Noble focused his artistic work on landscapes of Ohio and Kentucky countryside and Bensonhurst, New York.[4]
Noble's well-known works are largely historical or social/political presentations. He is best known for a series of four anti-slavery paintings. Each depicts a specific horror of slavery: The first, Last Sale of the Slaves (1865) depicted the scene of the last sale of the slaves on the St. Louis courthouse steps. He followed this painting with John Brown's Blessing (1866) which depicted the abolitionist activist John Brown being led to his execution and blessing a child on the steps of the courthouse. His third painting, The Modern Medea (1867), portrayed the tragic event from 1856 in which Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave mother, murdered her children rather than see them returned to slavery. The picture is notable for Garner's expression of rage and for including the white slave hunters in the imagery. Noble's last painting, Price of Blood (1868), was not based on a specific historical event, but depicted a white slave owner selling his mulatto son. As with The Modern Medea, this painting is unique for the era for the inclusion of the white perpetrators in its imagery.[4] Noble also sketched a well-known lithograph for Harper's weekly based on his John Brown's Blessing.[5]
1880: Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Academy of Design
1887: Indianapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis Art Association, 4th Annual Exhibition
1888: Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Art Institute, 1st Annual Exhibition of American Oil Paintings
1891: Cincinnati, Ohio, Piper Gallery, 2nd Exhibition of the Cincinnati Art Club
1894–95: Lexington, Kentucky, Lexington Manufacturer's Exposition, Art Loan Gallery
1895: Atlanta, GA Cotton States and International Exhibition
1895: Cincinnati, Ohio, Spring Exhibition of the Cincinnati Museum Association
1896: Cincinnati, Ohio, Spring Exhibition of the Cincinnati Museum Association
1896: Cincinnati, Ohio, Music Hall, Loan Exhibition of Portraits
1896: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Loan Exhibition of Portraits
1896–97: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Art Galleries, 1st Annual Exhibition
1896: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Exhibition of Studies, Sketches, and Pictures in Watercolors
1897: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, 2nd Exhibition of the Society of Western Artists
1897–98: Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Museum of Art, 2nd Exhibition of the Society of Western Artists
1898: Chicago, Illinois, Art Institute of Chicago, 2nd Exhibition of the Society of Western Artists
1898: Indianapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis Propylaeum, 2nd Exhibition of the Society of Western Artists
1898: Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Museum of Art, 3rd Exhibition of the Society of Western Artists
1898–99: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, 3rd Exhibition of the Society of Western Artists
1899: Indianapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis Art Association, 3rd Exhibition of the Society of Western Artists
1899: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, 6th Annual Exhibition of American Art
1900: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, 7th Annual Exhibition of American Art
1901: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Fall Festival
1905: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Business Men's Club
1906: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, 13th Annual Exhibition of American Art
1907: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, "Exhibition of the Work of the Late Thomas S. Noble"
1908: Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Art Institute, "Paintings of Thomas S. Noble 1835–1907"
1908: St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts, "Paintings by Thomas S. Noble, et al."
1910: New York, New York, Ralston Galleries, "Paintings by Thomas S. Noble"
1915: San Francisco, California, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Department of Fine Arts
1923: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, "Special Exhibition of Former Cincinnati Artists"
1937–38: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, "50th Anniversary Exhibition of Work by Teachers and Former Students of the Art Academy"
1970: College Park, Maryland, University of Maryland Art Gallery, "American Pupils of Thomas Couture"
1979–80: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, "The Golden Age: Cincinnati Painters of the 19th Century Represented in the Cincinnati Art Museum"
1981: Lexington, Kentucky, University of Kentucky Art Museum, "The Kentucky Painter: From the Frontier Era to the Great War"
1984: Owensboro, Kentucky, Owensboro Museum of Fine Arts, "Kentucky Expatriates: Natives and Notable Visitors"
1987: Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, "The Procter & Gamble Art Collection"
1987: New York, New York, Phillips Gallery, "Look Away, Reality and Sentiment in Southern Art"
1987: New York, New York, ACA Gallery, Visions of America 1787–1987: "200 Years of American Genre Painting in Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the US Constitution"
1988: Lexington, Kentucky, University of Kentucky Art Museum, "Thomas S. Noble 1835–1907"
1988: Greenville, South Carolina, Greenville County Museum of Art, "Thomas S. Noble 1835–1907"
1988: Cincinnati, Ohio, Art Academy of Cincinnati, "Thomas S. Noble 1835–1907"
1990: Washington, DC, Corcoran Gallery, Facing History: "The Black Image in American Art, 1710–1940"
1990: Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, "Facing History: The Black Image in American Art, 1710–1940"
2009.9.3: Oxford, Ohio, Miami University Art Museum "Figure and Form"
2015.3.25-2015.5.31: Greenville, SC, Greenville County Museum of Art, "Romantic Spirits: 19th Century Paintings from the Johnson Collection"
2016.1.13-2016.9.21: Greenville, SC, Greenville County Museum of Art, "Right Before your Very Eyes: Art + History"
2016: Highland Heights, Kentucky, Northern Kentucky University, Steely Library
2017.2.15- 2017.9.10: Greenville, SC, Greenville County Museum of Art, "In a Mirror, Darkly"
Chazen Museum of Art: Grandfather's Story (80th Birthday, The Old Sailor) (1895)
Cincinnati Art Museum: Back to School (1859), OhioLandscape (1890), Study Head of a Man (1865), Portrait of Joseph Longworth (1894), Portrait of David Sinton (1896), Landscape near T.S. Noble's House on Kemper Lane (unknown)
^Kleber, John E. (1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. University of Press of Kentucky. p. 683.
^ abMorgan, Joanne (2007). "Thomas Satterwhite Noble's Mulattos: From Barefoot Madonna to Maggie the Ripper". Journal of American Studies. 41. No. 1: 110.
^Birchfield, James (1986). "Thomas S. Noble: "Made for a Painter" [Part II]". Kentucky Review. 6. No. 2: 53.
