Tom Noble
Taos artist and a lifelong New Mexican, Tom Noble is celebrated for his watercolor scenes of the region’s cultural icons and landscape.
Tom Noble
Taos
2010 Recipient, Individual Artist
Taos artist and a lifelong New Mexican, Tom Noble is celebrated for his watercolor scenes of the region’s cultural icons and landscape. At the University of New Mexico’s College of Fine Arts in the mid-1960s, Tom’s professor and influential artist Sam Smith encouraged him to pursue a career in art. Noble works primarily in watercolor using an ink overlay to add precision and definition to a difficult medium. This third-generation Taoseño is also recognized for sharing his gift, teaching others his art, and generously supporting community organizations, such as the Taos Birthing Center. "No one paints watercolors like Taos artist Tom Noble — no one can, and no one will," said his nominator, Anne Uhring of Albuquerque. "For more than four decades, the man has proven himself as an exceptional artist who captures the best New Mexico has to offer, based upon a lifelong love of his native Taos and the generational influence of his family roots." In an artist’s statement, Noble said, "My paintings are of an imaginary world, a pre-industrial Arcadia, a time when northern New Mexico was nothing but rural villages, usually with a church in the center. Life was based on agriculture and living in harmony with the changing seasons."