William Bradford (April 30, 1823 – April 25, 1892) was an American romanticist painter,

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

and

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

, originally from

Fairhaven, Massachusetts Fairhaven (Massachusett: ) is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located on the South Coast of Massachusetts where the Acushnet River flows into Buzzards Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The town shares a harbor wit ...

, near

New Bedford New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American pe ...

. His early work focused on portraits of the many ships in New Bedford Harbor. In 1858, his painting ''New Bedford Harbor at Sunset'' was included in

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was no ...

's landmark New Bedford Art Exhibition.

Career

He is known for his paintings of ships and Arctic seascapes. From 1861 to 1866 he made excursions north to Labrador with Dr.

Isaac Israel Hayes Isaac Israel Hayes (March 5, 1832 – December 17, 1881) was an American Arctic explorer, physician, and politician, who was appointed as the commanding officer at Satterlee General Hospital during the American Civil War, and was then elected, a ...

. He was one of the first American painters to portray the frozen regions of the north: for example, his contemporary

Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...

had painted ''

The Icebergs ''The Icebergs'' is an 1861 oil painting by the American landscape artist Frederic Edwin Church. It was inspired by his 1859 voyage to the North Atlantic around Newfoundland and Labrador. Considered one of Church's "Great Pictures"—measuring ...

'' in 1861;

was also active in the same period. Bradford was accompanied by photographer William H. Pierce on his 1864 expedition, which resulted in the first iceberg photographs taken in acrtic regions. In 1862, Boston, he was an art teacher to

Charles Dormon Robinson Charles Dorman Robinson (alternate: Charles Dormon Robinson; nickname: C.D.) (July 17, 1847 - May 8, 1933) was an American panorama, cyclorama, landscape, and marine painter. He is known for his seascapes and landscapes of Northern California, in ...

. With funds provided by

LeGrand Lockwood LeGrand Lockwood (1820 – February 24, 1872), was a businessman and financier in New York City in the late 19th century. He built the Lockwood–Mathews Mansion in Norwalk, Connecticut. Biography Lockwood was born in Norwalk. He began his c ...

, Bradford traveled to Greenland in 1869, his farthest northern excursion, reaching eventually as far as 75° north latitude aboard the steamship ''Panther'', accompanied by photographers John L. Dunmore and George Critcherson. Upon his return, Bradford spent two years in London, where he published an account of his trips to the north, entitled ''The Arctic regions, illustrated with photographs taken on an art expedition to Greenland; with descriptive narrative by the artist.''(London, 1873) Elephant folio. In 1874, he was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

as an Associate member. He was associated with the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, ...

, not an institution but rather an informal group of like-minded painters. He adopted their techniques and became highly interested in the way light touches water and how it affects the appearance of water surfaces and the general atmospherics of a painting. He compositionally balanced many of his paintings by creating a counter-subject and by placing darker colors around the edges, framing and counteracting the center's better-lit subject. Scene in the Arctic

Gallery

File:William Bradford - Looking out of Battle Harbor - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Looking out of Battle Harbor'', 1877 File:Bradford, William - Whaler and Fishing Vessels near the Coast of Labrador - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Whaler And Fishing Vessels Near The Coast Of Labrador'', 1880 File:An Incident of Whaling.jpg, ''An Incident of Whaling''

References

External links

* http://www.whalingmuseum.org/online_exhibits/wm_bradford/index.html
Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''

www.William-Bradford-Gallery.org
123 works by William Bradford
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute 2002 exhibition "Arctic Diary: Paintings and Photographs by William Bradford"

New Bedford Whaling Museum 2003 exhibition "William Bradford: Sailing Ships & Arctic Seas"

"Arctic Visions: Away then Floats the Ice-Island", exhibit microsite
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradford, William 1823 births 1892 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters American explorers 19th-century American photographers American marine artists People from Fairhaven, Massachusetts 19th-century American male artists