The Arctic Regions: illustrated with photographs taken on an art expedition to Greenland

The Arctic Regions: illustrated with photographs taken on an art expedition to Greenland

Author: William Bradford, 1823-1892

Year: 1873

The Arctic Regions: Illustrated with photographs taken on an art expedition to Greenland was printed in London in 1873. This was a limited edition of three hundred copies with descriptive and narrative text by the artist. In the summer of 1869, the American marine painter William Bradford began an unprecedented journey to the Arctic. While others had ventured into the region before him, Bradford’s expedition from Boston, Massachusetts to the western coast of Greenland was the first of its kind planned solely for the purposes of art. He intended to sketch, photograph, and write about the extreme, enchanting landscape that had become an obsession in Anglo-American culture. Bradford, already a celebrated painter of icebergs, hired two Boston-based photographers, John Dunmore and George Critcherson to join the expedition. The photographs they produced were later edited and compiled in this rare and extravagant photographic book, titled The Arctic Regions: Illustrated with Photographs Taken on an Art Expedition to Greenland .