John A. Noble is one of America's preeminent maritime artists. Born in Paris in 1913, he was the son of the noted American painter, John "Wichita Bill" Noble. He moved with his family to the United States in 1919. A graduate of the Friends Seminary in New York City, Noble returned to France in 1931, where he studied for one year at the University of Grenoble. From 1928 until 1945, Noble worked as a seaman on schooners and in marine salvage. In 1928, while on a schooner that was towing out down the Kill van Kull, the waterway that separates Staten Island, New York, from New Jersey, he saw the old Port Johnston ship boneyard for the first time. In 1941, he began to build his floating studio there, out of parts of vessels he salvaged. From 1946 on, he worked as a full-time artist until his death in 1983. Hulls and Hulks in the Tide of Time is a biography and catalogue raisonne of Noble's lithographs. It includes information about the artist's life, illustrated with rarely seen photographs. It also includes full-page reproductions and full documentation of all of the Noble lithographs, as well as extensive quotations from his writings. It is handsomely bound in a 269-page hardcover book with a bibliography and index of titles. Hulls and Hulks in the Tide of Time: The Life and Work of John A. Noble is an indispensable resource in 20th century maritime history.
