Anne Noggle

Anne Noggle (1922-August 16, 2005) was an American aviator. She served as a WASP during World War II and made a career for herself as a photographer after the war.

Early years
Noggle was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1922, and died Albuquerque, New Mexico on August 16, 2005 at the age of 83. She set a goal of becoming a pilot after seeing Amelia Earhart at an air show in Chicago. When she was 17, her mother, who was a bookstore manager, agreed to let her take flying lessons.

WASP of World War II
At 21, Noggle traveled to Sweetwater, Texas, to attend training to become one of the Women Airforce Service Pilots(WASP). She graduated in the class of 44-W-1. She flew missions in 1943 and 1944. The WASP were disbanded in late 1944. After the war, she became a crop-duster in the Southwest and flew stunts in an aerial circus.

When the Air Force offered commissions to former WASPs in 1953, she applied and was a pilot during the Korean War. She retired as a captain in 1959 when she developed emphysema.

While in the Air Force, Noggle had been stationed in Paris. She visited the Louvre which ignited an artistic impulse. Back in the States, she enrolled at the University of New Mexico as an art history major. She earned a bachelor's degree in fine art in 1966 and a master's in 1969.

Education
Noggle went back to school and in 1969 graduated with a Masters in Art from the University of New Mexico. She developed her skills as a photographer and developed an interest in documenting the aging process of women – including her own “witty and challenging” self-portraits.

The University of New Mexico gave her an honorary doctorate, acknowledging her “extensive contribution to the field of art and art history.”

Photography career
Noggle was 48 when she had her first one-woman show, at a gallery in Taos, N.M., in 1970.

Noggle was Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art from 1970-76.

National Endowment for the Arts Grants

 * 1975, Noggle received a photographer grant from the NEA.
 * 1978, she received another photographer grant from the NEA
 * 1981, Noggle received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to conduct a New Mexico photographic survey.

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship
In 1982, Noggle was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship.

Career in education
Noggle accepted a position of adjunct professor of Art at the University of New Mexico and taught there from 1970 to 1984.

Legacy
The Harn Museum at the University of Florida presented an exhibition of Noggle's photographs from June 26, 2012 to March 10, 2013. The title of the exhibition was "Anne Noggle: Reality and the Blind Eye of Truth." Noggle's work is in the permanent collections of several art museums, including California Museum of Photography, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, New Mexico Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Publications
In 1975 Noggle co-curated an exhibition and catalog for the San Francisco Museum of Art, Women of Photography: An Historical Survey. This exhibition was credited with introducing the work of American women photographers to a broader audience.

In 1983 UNM Press published Silver Lining. This book (now out of print) showcased Noggle’s photographs that documented the challenges she and other women in America faced as they grew olde

She made portraits of her fellow WASPs as older women in the book For God, Country and the Thrill of It: Women Airforce Service Pilots in World War II (1990).

A Dance With Death, telling the story of the Soviet airwomen of World War II was published in  1994. Noggle had traveled to the Soviet Union to photograph and record the stories of these women.