Minneapolis Institute of Art

Locked in the Ice--Waiting it Out

William Bradford

Date

c. 1873

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

William Bradford was one of a small number of Euro American artists who traveled to the Arctic in the 1860s and 1870s. He took hundreds of photographs and made numerous paintings based on his experience of the climate, natural wonders, and meetings with Indigenous people who lived in the area. In this work, Bradford shows a danger that he experienced firsthand: a ship that has become trapped within fast-growing ice. Positioning the ship within a vast, desolate landscape illuminated by a soft orange glow, Bradford shows the sailors as they begin to move supplies onto the ice. There, they will make camp, waiting and hoping for a thaw that might allow an escape back to open water. The historic frame, an American gilded ogee cove frame from c. 1870, is a gift of the Douglas and Mary Olson Frame Acquisition Fund. United States, Americas

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