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Shirley Conduit de Gonzales, 1986 -
Mary Retrack Wells, 1986 -
Valentina Volkova-Tikhonova, 1990 -
Edith “Tiny” Keene, 1981 -
Reminiscence: Portrait with my sister, 1980. -
Mary, afternoon, November, 1976 -
Artifact, 1976 -
Agnes, La Jolla, 1970 -
The old nymph, 1985 -
Karen, winter, aka, Untitled, 1977 -
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Credit: Anne Noggle/Courtesy of Museum of New Mexico Press
Anne Noggle was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1922. In her mid-teens, she saw the legendary aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and persuaded her mother to let her take flying classes. She joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, during World War II and achieved the rank of captain. After the war, she turned to odd jobs, working as a flight instructor, aerial circus performer and crop duster. At 38, suffering from emphysema, she retired from flying and studied photography in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Flight of Spirit: The Photographs of Anne Noggle collects 82 of her remarkable black-and-white images, most of them portraits of aging women. She often turned the camera lens on herself, documenting what she called “the saga of fallen flesh” in the female face and body with respect and a touch of wry humor. Her photographs express the conflicts of aging in a beautiful, bold and honest way.
Flight of Spirit: The Photographs of Anne Noggle,
By Martha A. Strawn, ed.
160 pages, hardcover: $45
Museum of New Mexico Press, 2019
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A retired WWII pilot photographs ‘the saga of fallen flesh’.
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