He was born in Lyon, France, in 1958.
He loved Iggy Pop music, who lived in West Berlin at the time. So, in 1982, he moved to Berlin.
He lived near the Berlin Wall.
In 1984, he was the first person who painted the Wall. Painting on the wall was absolutely forbidden. It was built 3 metres beyond the official border so the east-German soldiers were able to arrest any person standing near it. He and ChristopheEmmanuel Bouchet painted 1 Km of it.
Between 1984 and the fall of the Berlin Wall (1990-1992), many other artists painted the wall including Keith Haring, Kiddy Cidny, and Indiano.
In 1992 the Berlin Wall was declared a historic monument. In 2009, Noir was part of an initiative to restore 1300 meters of the wall. Noir repainted several of his original works.
In early 2013 Noir painted a large mural with the London-based street artist Stik on the Village Underground Wall in Shoreditch, London.
In April 2014 Noir staged his first solo exhibition entitled Thierry Noir: A Retrospective at Howard Griffin Gallery, in London.
His creations put a strong emphasis on line and he reduces simple forms to their most basic elements. This simplicity comes from the need to paint very fast outdoors without being caught by the soldiers at the Wall.