An insight into the art of photographer Anne Noble

Anne Noble was Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University’s first distinguished Professor of Fine Arts. After a 28-year career teaching photography she retired from Massey in 2022 but retains close connections with the university as Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts (Photography).

Professor Noble was awarded an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2003 for services to photography. In 2015, she won the 31st Higashikawa Overseas Photographer Award in Japan.

She has been at the forefront of photographic practice in New Zealand since the early 1980s, creating bodies of work that mark sustained engagement with places, sites, histories, species and more recently the environmental degradation of land and water.

Senior Lecturer in Photography Caroline McQuarrie says the lecture is a fitting way to recognise the influence and impact that Professor Noble has had on photography scholarship and at Massey University, 50 years after photography was first offered as a tertiary course.

“This lecture celebrates the contribution Anne has made to both the wider photographic field and to our programme at Massey. Anne is recognised internationally for the quality of her image making and her careful attention to the way photographs function culturally will be at the heart of her lecture.”

In 2008, Professor Noble worked with the family of the late Peter Turner to establish the annual Peter Turner Memorial lecture series and she ran the event for several years. The annual lecture is a partnership between Massey University’s Whiti o Rehua School of Art and Te Papa Tongarewa. The Massey Foundation has also established the Peter Turner Fund to support a postgraduate photography scholarship each year.

The Peter Turner Memorial Lecture is being held at Soundings Theatre, Te Papa Tongarewa, Thursday 7 August, 6.30pm.