In 1869, LeGrand Lockwood, a New York banker and art collector, commissioned the ice-strengthened sealing ship Panther to take the American marine painter William Bradford (1823–1892) and others on an expedition to the Arctic. They sailed from St John’s in Newfoundland in July, and Bradford made copious drawings in pencil and oil sketches during the voyage, and recorded much of it in photographs.
By mid-August, the Panther had reached Melville Bay, at a latitude of 75˚ north, where it became trapped in pack ice for two days. The expedition was forced to turn back to work their way out of the pack, and returned to St John’s having covered a total of five thousand nautical miles. The account of this expedition, illustrated with 141 albumen photographic prints made by Bradford and others, was published in 1873. Bradford received many commissions for paintings of the journey, including one from Queen Victoria herself.
Bradford visited Britain during the 1870s, and worked in a seasonal studio in San Francisco during the late 1870s. Public tastes switched away from the Arctic in the 1880s, though, as European art started to become much more influential, and by the time of his death in 1892 his art was already almost forgotten.
An Arctic Summer: Boring Through the Pack in Melville Bay (1871) shows the Panther working its way through pack ice close to the west coast of Greenland. Melville Bay is a huge bay on the island’s north-west coast, which was an important area for whaling fleets in the nineteenth century. Note the fragment of mast from a wreck, at the left.
Bradford also painted some pure landscape views of the coast of Greenland, including this View of Sermitsialik Glacier (1873). This glacier is near the abandoned mining town of Ivittuut, close to Cape Desolation on the western side of the southern tip of Greenland. This was also the site of one of the Norse (‘Viking’) settlements, dating from about 985 CE, although I don’t think that Bradford painted any of the settlements on the island.
In Arctic Sunset (1874), the Panther appears to be set fast in the ice.
Near Cape St. Johns, Coast of Labrador (1874) shows a smaller harbour near what is better known as Cape Saint John, with its green summer vegetation.
His undated An Incident of Whaling shows a whaling ship’s crew preparing to abandon their ship, which is stuck fast in ice. This would have been standard practice once the captain had decided that the ship couldn’t be freed, and its hull was at risk of being crushed. Even strengthened hulls couldn’t withstand the enormous pressures inflicted by sea ice.
Abandoned in the Arctic Ice Fields (1876) shows the end result, one of the many wrecks that had to be abandoned when they became stuck in the ice.
Looking out of Battle Harbour (1877) shows what had been a major fishing port on the Labrador coast. Established in the late eighteenth century, it flourished over the following century, then entered decline in the twentieth century, becoming just a summer fishing station. It is now a National Historic Site of Canada.
When Bradford was back in his Fairhaven studio after the expedition, he created large finished oil paintings from his sketches made on board the Panther. Comparison of his photos and paintings has demonstrated that he also relied quite heavily on those photos, although they were of course all monochrome.
He has flooded this painting, Ice Dwellers, Watching the Invaders (c 1870-79), with the rich reds of dusk. Its title refers to the seals in the foreground, and the polar bear and cubs making their way across the ice at the right.
In Bradford’s Whaler and Fishing Vessels near the Coast of Labrador (c 1880), a group of smaller fishing boats has been joined by a larger whaling ship, which would presumably have been on its way to whaling grounds to the north. Three fishermen are working in one of the ship’s boats, hauling in their net.
Bradford’s undated Fishing Boats and Icebergs (above) is one of several paintings he made showing fishing vessels around icebergs, off the Labrador coast. Fishing Fleet off Labrador (1884) (below) shows a similar scene.
In style, Bradford’s paintings share the romanticism typical of the Hudson River School, which originated in the work of Thomas Cole from 1825, and reached a peak in the grand landscapes of Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt between 1855-75. However, Bradford isn’t normally considered to have been a member of that school.
The Eclectic Light Company 