Georges Noël (1924–2010) was a French painter and sculptor known for his highly textured, gestural works that drew on art informal and Nouveau Réalisme. Born in Béziers, France, he initially studied engineering before turning to painting and sculpture in Pau from 1939 to 1945. Noël’s work was influenced by primitive and archaic symbols, graffiti, and musical scores, emphasizing gesture, objects, and the role of chance in creation.

After relocating to Paris in 1955, Noël’s artistic career flourished, later expanding internationally with time spent in the United States. From the 1950s through 2010, he produced both canvases and works on handmade papers inspired by palimpsests—manuscript pages reused so that traces of previous writing remain visible. He extended this concept to painting, layering sand, crushed flint, and raw pigments to create three-dimensional, richly textured surfaces.

Noël also taught at the Minneapolis School of Art in 1969 and lived in New York from 1969 to 1983 before returning to Paris. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bibliothèque Nationale and F.N.A.C. in Paris, and the Nationalgalerie in Berlin.