Thomas Satterwhite Noble

Thomas Satterwhite Noble

Thomas Satterwhite Noble (undated photo)
Born (1835-05-29)May 29, 1835
Lexington, Kentucky
Died April 27, 1907(1907-04-27) (aged 71)
New York, New York
Resting place Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio
Nationality American
Education Oliver Frazier, George P. A. Healey, Thomas Couture
Known for Painting
Notable work 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.

Biography

Margaret Garner/The Modern Medea

Noble was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and raised on a plantation where hemp and cotton were grown. He showed an interest and propensity for art at an early age. He first studied painting with Samuel Woodson Price in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1852 and then continued his studies with Price, Oliver Frazier and George P.A. Healey at Transylvania University in Lexington. In 1853 he moved to New York, New York, before moving to Paris to study with Thomas Couture from 1856 to 1859[1].

Noble then returned to the United States in 1859 intending on beginning his art career. However, with the beginning of the Civil War, as a Southerner, he served in the Confederate army from 1862 to 1865. 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.[2]

Noble's well-known works are largely historical or social/political presentations. He is best known for a series of four anti-slavery paintings. The first, Last Sale of the Slaves (1865) depicted a the scene of the last sale of the slaves on the St. Louis courthouse steps. He then 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 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 half-white slave son. Noble said of this painting that "this picture will be regarded as one of the powerful lights that I have thrown into the dark night of slavery. One of the most thundering denunciations of man's inhumanity to man"[3] As with The Modern Medea, this painting is unique for the era with the inclusion of the white perpetrators in the imagery[4].

Exhibitions and major works

Noble's artwork has been exhibited in over 70 exhibitions, both during his lifetime and after his death. Most of Noble's well-know initial works are historical presentations, painted to make strong political and moral commentary. Later in in his life he painted many allegorical images, often using his children to 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 most well known paintings are Last Sale of the Slaves, John Brown's Blessing, Price of Blood and Margaret Garner. Each painting depicts a specific horror of slavery: In Last Sale of the Slaves, the selling of a mother and child; in Price of Blood, the selling of a son by the slave owner; In Margaret Garner, a mother killing her children rather than subjecting them to slavery. Noble also sketched a well-known lithograph for Harper's weekly based on his John Brown's Blessing[5].

Known exhibitions[6][7][1]

Major museum/collection holdings[6]

Correspondence[8]

Art historians and scholars have speculated on the motivations for Noble depicting such political scenes and commentary in his most well known works. A specific focus has been on that Noble was a Southerner whose family owned slaves and who served in the Confederate army and how these facts contradict the anti-slavery subject matter of his art. The discovery in 2015 of extensive correspondence by Thomas Noble written during the years 1865–1907 provides new insight into the motivations of the artist. In his letters, his clear opposition to slavery, the importance of a moral artistic philosophy, and his feeling of being an outsider in the South add a deeper understanding to the complexity of the motivations behind his art.[9]

From a letter to his future wife, Mary Caroline Hogan, April 11, 1868:
"I would rather take you to democratic New York, where men can think and act as deems best to them. Where we can have no one interfere with our religion or politics and we can do just as we please, no so in any other city. Without much annoyance from ignorant, meddlesome people who have the road of propriety chalked out and expect everyone to walk in it after a fashion prescribed by a select few. This will not suit me. I am not suited to any state other than perfect freedom. To think and speak and act just as I please".
From a letter to his future wife, Mary Caroline Hogan, December 1, 1867
"In coming among men of culture and taste, I have but come into my natural element in my works. I have displayed a power which wins their admiration and touches their hearts. I may meet with bitter opposition. Many bitter enemies. It would be strange if I did not…but I came not for that. I would rather have it than not. I wield a weapon mightier than the pen – I will silence them with my pencil. Nay no – attention to any adverse criticisms on me or my works. I know I am working in behalf of light".

As his correspondence is read and further analyzed, greater insight into the artistic and personal motivations of this 19th Century American artist and teacher will help better inform his legacy and the narrative of his role in American art.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Birchfield, James (1989). Thomas Satterwhite Noble, 1835-1907. University of Kentucky Press. p. 39.
  2. ↑ "Thomas Satterwhite Noble". Find A Grave. August 29, 2009. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  3. ↑ Personal Correspondence. Thomas Satterwhite Noble to his wife Mary Caroline Hogan Noble. 1867.
  4. 1 2 Morgan, Joanne (2007). "Thomas Satterwhite Noble's Mulattos: From Barefoot Madonna to Maggie the Ripper.". Journal of American Studies. Vol. 41. No. 1: Page 110 – via JSTOR.
  5. ↑ Birchfield, James (1986). "Thomas S. Noble: "Made for a Painter" [Part II]". Kentucky Review. Vol. 6. No. 2: 53 – via JSTOR.
  6. 1 2 "Thomas Satterwhite Noble". Ask Art. September 11, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  7. ↑ Flemming, Tuliza Kamirah (2007). Thomas Satterwhite Noble (1835- 1907): Reconstructed Rebel. – via Drum.lib.umb.edu.
  8. ↑ Personal Correspondence and recollections collected from letters and correspondence held by direct descendants of Thomas Satterwhite Noble.
  9. ↑ Personal correspondence. Thomas Satterwhite Noble to his future wife Mary Caroline Hogan (1866-1868).

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