Jacob Nöbbe was located in Flensburg and recognized as a portrait painter. As a drawing teacher, he privately taught the young Emil Hansen, who later became famous under the name of Emil Nolde.

After studying at the art academy in Dusseldorf and Dresden he worked for a year as a portrait painter before he went to the Berlin Academy of Arts to broaden his knowledge. Besides Wilhelm Dreesen he was the central figure in an artists' colony that had settled in Ekensund.

His painting interest was the naturalistic depiction of his Schleswig-Holstein home in portraits and landscapes whose special quality showed in the treatment of light and color.

Jacob Nöbbe was a German portrait and landscape painter from Flensburg. Nöbbe studied at first at the Academies in Dusseldorf and Dresden and later in Berlin. He settled down in his hometown Flensburg, were he worked as a drawing teacher and taught among others the young Emil Hansen, who became famous later as Emil Nolde. The artist belonged to the circle of painters of the artist colony Ekensund at the northern bank of the Flensburg Fjord (today Denmark). His oeuvre contains mainly portraits, genre and landscape painting. His dark color palette became brighter as time passed due to the influence of painting en plein air. His work is especially characterized by streetscapes and panoramas of Flensburg.