Noah North

Noah North (June 27, 1809, Alexander, New York – June 15, 1880, Attica, New York)[1] was an itinerant American portrait painter in the folk art tradition.

Family Group with Cat

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.[2]

His career as an artist was very brief; almost entirely confined to the 1830s. In addition to Alexander, he also worked in Rochester, Cleveland and Cincinnati (1836/37) and possibly northern Kentucky.[1]

His portraits resemble those of Ammi Phillips, 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.[2]

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.[2]

In 1841, he returned to New York, got married, and settled in Livingston County. From 1845 to 1847, he operated a daguerreotype 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.[1]

gollark: I suppose they're mostly just checked for grammar, time-matchingness and slight sanity.
gollark: I expect that in most fights the Guardian of Nature would win though.
gollark: Anyway, the description for Causal Mondays (a chronoxeno) does mention actual time travel and was accepted, so presumably there is *some* support for the idea of time magic extending to time travel.
gollark: It doesn't have to be a duel to the death.
gollark: Of course, aeons/chronos are, strictly speaking, only explicitly only shown to have views of the future/past and time speed change, respectively.

References
  1. Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary by Jeffrey Weidman @ Google Books.
  2. Biography @ AskArt.

Media related to Noah North at Wikimedia Commons

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