NOBLE, John (Darcy) 1923-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born March 21, 1923, in London, England; died of complications from diabetes September 21, 2003, in Vista, CA. Museum curator. Noble was a respected authority on toys and dolls who was a longtime curator of toys at the Museum of the City of New York. Beginning a lifelong practice of collecting toys when he was only ten, Noble became recognized as an authority on the subject by the time he was in his twenties. Receiving a diploma in art from Goldsmith's College, he worked as a costume designer in England while also organizing a number of toy exhibitions. In 1955, he was hired to work for Pollock's Toy Museum in London, and in 1961 he moved to New York City to become the first toy curator at the Museum of the City of New York. He remained there until his retirement in 1985, and as curator more than doubled the museum's collection of rare toys and dolls. Noble, who was especially excited by eighteenth-and nineteenth-century dolls, also made his own paper dolls, which are quickly becoming collectibles themselves. He wrote extensively on the subject, publishing numerous articles and four books: Dolls (1967), A Treasury of Beautiful Dolls (1971), A Fabulous Dollhouse of the Twenties: The FamousStettheimer Dollhouse at the Museum of the City of New York (1976), and Rare & Lovely: Two Centuries of Beautiful Dolls (2000). In addition to his expertise with dolls, in 1980 Noble was made a bishop in the Church of the Beloved Disciple, and at the time of his death he was working to found a branch of the church in Los Angeles.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2003, p. B10.

New York Times, October 12, 2003, p. A31.