Noah North (27 June 1809,

Alexander, New York Alexander is a town in Genesee County, New York, United States. The population was 2,491 at the 2020 census. The town is named after Alexander Rea, an early settler, and is on the southern border of the county. It includes a village also named ...

– 15 June 1880,

Attica, New York Attica is a town in Wyoming County, New York, United States. The population was 1,846 as of 2023. The Town of Attica is on the northern boundary of the county and contains part of a village also named Attica (the northern part of the village ...

) was an itinerant American portrait painter in the

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

tradition.

Life and work

He was born to a prominent family that was active in civic affairs, as he would be throughout much of his life. His interest in painting was apparently the result of a friendship with Van Rensselaer Hawkins (1797–1847), an itinerant painter and art teacher who came to live in Alexander. His career as an artist was very brief; almost entirely confined to the 1830s. In addition to Alexander, he also worked in Rochester,

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

and

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

(1836/37) and possibly northern Kentucky. His portraits resemble those of

Ammi Phillips Ammi Phillips (April 24, 1788 – July 11, 1865) was a prolific American itinerant portrait painter active from the mid 1810s to the early 1860s in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. His artwork is identified as folk art, primitive art, p ...

, another New York painter, originally from Connecticut. Milton W. Hopkins may have also been an influence as he apparently lived in close proximity to North. In fact, census records indicate that North may have boarded with Hopkins. His style is very simple and also reminiscent of the early New England limners. Many of his works feature people holding pets. His first dated portrait is from 1833, although it is identified as "number 11", which naturally suggest that ten paintings have been lost. No signed portraits are known from after 1840. In 1841, he returned to New York, got married, and settled in Livingston County. From 1845 to 1847, he operated a

daguerreotype Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photography, photographic process, widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced worldwid ...

studio in Mount Morris. He also did occasional work as an ornamental painter, although farming appears to have been his primary activity until his death.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:North, Noah 1809 births 1880 deaths American male painters American folk artists Painters from New York (state) 19th-century American painters People from Alexander, New York People from Livingston County, New York 19th-century American male artists