A painter whose work was rediscovered in the late 20th century, Harold Noecker was born in Urbana, Illinois and remained active in Chicago as a painter in the 1930s and 1940s. He took art classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art and was trained as an architect at the University of Illinois.

Noecker's painting style was both surrealistic and realistic, "combining familiar objects in ways that are ultimately haunting and enigmatic." (Kennedy 135) Many of his houses and objects placed in interiors as well as figures are isolated in a manner that suggest haunting loneliness. It is thought that Noecker's single figures in interiors reflected the inner life of the artist himself. "Noecker also sometimes included a rushing figure or a his...