LONDON.- A rare tapestry by Turner Prize-nominated artist Paul Noble has been bought for the Laing Art Gallery with help from the Art Fund.

Based on the centrepiece of Paul Noble's 2010 Laing Art Gallery exhibition, the monumental Villa Joe tapestry recreates Noble's painstaking pencil draughtsmanship in hand-dyed woolen yarn. It was created for a 2008 project called Demons, Yarns & Tales, which saw contemporary artists including Peter Blake, Gary Hume and Grayson Perry working outsize of their usual media to produce large-scale textiles.

Noble's piece shows the area surrounding 'Villa Joe', a 'personalised holiday villa' near the artist's imagined city of Nobson Newtown. The stony landscape around the building is littered with allusions to Henry Moore, one of Noble's greatest influences, with rock formations echoing Moore's reclining figures and helmet series.

Paul Noble's background and growing international status as an artist make this a significant acquisition both nationally and locally. He was born in Dilston, a village near Newcastle, and grew up in nearby Whitley Bay. His Gagosian Gallery exhibition Welcome to Nobson earned him a nomination for the 2012 Turner Prize, alongside artists Luke Fowler, Elizabeth Price and Spartacus Chetwynd.