The Prisoner and The Prostitute were drawn on 1969 when Noel was spending four months in a studio at the Cité Internationale des Arts in the 4th arrondissement in Paris. One can speculate on why, for once, he wrote the precise date on each drawing. The Prisoner and A Prisoner (done the following year in Melbourne) reflect what Dimmack calls his recurring concern with man as prisoner . The paintings The Wire (1966) and The White Cell (1978), both owned by the National Gallery of Victoria, are related as are the studies of alienation such as The Tightrope, The Wall, The Man With Bloody Hand. The Paris drawings were exhibited at the end of 1969 in Torun and Warsaw, Moscow and Leningrad in a show of graphics. Pat Counihan January 7, 1990
Pat Counihan, the artist's widow; to 1990
Max Dimmack, Noel Counihan, Melbourne University Press, 1974, page 34