Friends Lecture: Patrick Noon and an “Artist in Bloom: Eugene Delacroix’s Still Life with Dahlias, Zinnias, Hollyhocks and Plums”
With generous support from the Mark and Mary Goff Fiterman Fund, please join us for the April Friends Lecture, “Artist in Bloom: Eugene Delacroix’s Still Life with Dahlias, Zinnias, Hollyhocks and Plums.”
A familiar face in the corridors and galleries of Mia for 22 years, Patrick Noon was the Senior Curator of Paintings, retiring in early 2020. Patrick joined the museum in 1997. Before joining Mia he served for 20 years on the curatorial staff at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven and was the founding curator of the Prints, Drawings and Rare Books area.
Patrick is a specialist in French and British art from the 1700s and 1800s. His acquisitions brought considerable depth to the holdings at Mia with the addition of some 200 paintings. Patrick remembers the first painting he bought for the museum, Pastoral Landscapes, by French artist Claude Lorraine, fondly referring to it as “the Claude.”.
Patrick has published and lectured extensively on French and British art. His research resulted in prominent exhibitions including “The English Miniature” in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum; “Richard Parkes Bonington” with the Musee de Petit Palais, Paris; “Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age of Romanticisim” with Tate Britain and the Metropolitan Museum; and most recently “Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art” with the National Gallery of London. “Delacroix’s Influence: The Rise of Modern Art from Cézanne to van Gogh” was shown at Mia in 2015 during the museum’s 100th birthday year.
The Friends of the Institute purchased Eugene Delacroix’s Still Life with Dahlias, Zinnias, Hollyhocks and Plums for Mia to commemorate the Friends’ 100th year anniversary taking place in 2022. As with the acquisition of ‘the Claude,’ “sometimes you just cannot account for happenstance,” according to Patrick. He will recount the fascinating story behind the Still Life Delacroix which was in a private collection and never before in the public eye until coming to Mia.