Noel Quinn was born on Christmas day and grew up in Rhode Island. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1936, Quinn received a fellowship to do post graduate studies in France and Italy. He studied with Andre L'Hote, known as a key teacher in the Cubist art movement and with Andre Cassandre, a famous artist. He eventually went to work as an art director for the Paris division of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency.

When World War II started, he moved to the Los Angeles area and began working in the motion picture industry. He produced pre-production art for many studios including Paramount, M.G.M. and Twentieth Century-Fox. In addition, he became a watercolor painting instuctor at the Otis Art Institute and worked as a freelance commercial illustrator.

Throughout his career, he painted and exhibited fine art watercolors. The style he worked in featured bold patterns, bright colors and were usually geometric abstractions based on cubist ideas. He sold work through galleries in Paris, New York and Los Angeles and exhibited nationally in annual art shows. In 1959, he toured the Pacific and Japan doing commissioned art works for the United States Air Force. In the years following, he produced a series of educational films on watercolor painting. He was president of the California Water Color Society in 1962 and president of the Society of Motion Picture Illustrators from 1963-1965.

STUDIED: Rhode Island School of Design, Ecole des Beaux Arts (PARIS), Parsons School of Fine Arts (PARIS). MEMBER: AWS, California Watercolor Society, Society of Motion Picture Artists.

Biographical information: Interview with Noel Quinn, 1983.

Biography provided courtesy of California Watercolors 1850-1970 by Gordon T. McClelland and Jay T. Last. Copyright Hillcrest Press, Inc. 2002

Watercolorist, Noel Joseph Quinn was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on December 25, 1915. Quinn grew up on the East Coast and studied art at the Rhode Island School of Design. He continued his art studies in Paris at Ecole des Beaux Arts and, while there, was art director for the J. Walter Thompson Company.

Before leaving Europe, he was asked by Adolph Hitler to critique his watercolors and spent time with Pablo Picasso. With WWII approaching, Quinn moved to Los Angeles where he taught at Otis Art Institute and worked in the art department at Paramount Pictures.

His regionalist paintings of the 1940s and 1950s often include Victorian houses and the coast near Laguna. He lived in Los Angeles until his demise on May 5, 1993.

Member: Society of Motion Picture Illustrators; California Water Color Society.

Exhibitions:
California Water Color Society, 1947-52; California State Fair, 1949; De Young Museum, 1949; Pasadena Art Institute, 1950, 1951; MM, 1952.

Collection:
Butler Institute (Youngstown, OH); Cole College; Hollywood Turf Club.