He was President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and Chairman of the Contemporary Portrait Society.
[3] He was a Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and a Freeman of the City of London.
He painted actors, writers, academics, diplomats, politicians, lawyers, churchmen, senior military personnel, businessmen, leaders of the industry and members of the Royal Family.
[4] He received a platinum disc for his sleeve design for the record Portrait of Sinatra (1977), the only painter ever to have been awarded such an honour.
Michael Noakes spent much of 1999 with the Queen, making sketches, paintings and drawings for the book The Daily Life of the Queen: An Artist's Diary, written by his late wife Vivien (died 2011), published September 2000.