![Minneapolis Insititute of Art painting curator Patrick Noon with Vincent van Gogh's Pietà, one of the paintings in his new "blockbuster" show "Eugene Delacroix and Modernity." ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Friday, October 9, 2015 Unknown even to many museum-regulars Eugene Delacroix is a giant of 19th century French art, a tempestuous spirit whose vibrant colors and expressive style influenced everyone from Manet and Monet to John Singer Sargent, Degas, Van Gogh and Cezanne. Examples of their work will be paired with the Delacroix paintings that inspired them in "Eugene Delacroix and Modernity," the capstone exhibition of the MIA's centennial year and a personal triumph for the museum's painting curator Patrick Noon who has worked on the show for at elast a decade. With loans from some 40 museums around the world, it also calls in a lot of professional chips. After its Minneapolis debut it will be shown only at the National Gallery, London. We're taking a portrait of Mpls Insititute of Art painting curator Patrick Noon amid paintings in his new "blockbuster" show "Eugene Delacroix and Modernity."](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/WAEXVHSQX7E34H6E4XVW33DL6Y.jpg?&w=1080)
Mia curator Patrick Noon with Vincent van Gogh's "Pietà" in 2015 while previewing the exhibit "Eugene Delacroix and Modernity." (Photo by Glen Stubbe, Star Tribune)
Patrick Noon, who acquired dozens of masterpieces for the Minneapolis Institute of Art during a 22-year tenure, will retire at the end of January.
A specialist in French and British art from the 1700s and 1800s, he served as senior curator of paintings, raising the museum's international profile with blockbuster shows and enriching its collection with 150 paintings including Claude Lorrain's "Pastoral Landscape" and Alexander Roslin's "Comtesse d'Egmont Pignatelle."
In an interview, Noon said he's particularly proud of the 2003 exhibition "Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age of Romanticism." Organized with the Tate Britain and Metropolitan Museum of Art, it included 150 paintings drawn from 87 museums and private collections.
The exhibition showed the mixing of French and English cultures after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. In it, Noon argued that French art was influenced and possibly revitalized by Anglo-Scottish themes, and techniques between 1820-1840.
"That was something I had been working on for years, and that was an opportunity to really bring textbook masterpieces to Minneapolis," he said. "It was probably the most important show I ever organized."
A Mia spokesperson said the museum has not yet begun its search for a new senior curator of paintings or department chair.
Noon joined the institute in 1997 after 20 years at the Yale Center for British Art, where he was Curator of Prints, Drawings and Rare Books. He supervised the 1998 reinstallation of the European and American collections, and was curatorial chair during a 2004-07 museum-wide reinstallation.
