Coast of Labrador

William Bradford first set out for the northernmost latitudes of the arctic in the summer of 1861, visiting Labrador and Greenland to paint some of the earliest images of this remote region. While there, he also conducted an extensive photographic survey and recorded his encounters with the indigenous Esquimaux people. Nearly every year over the following decade, Bradford mounted additional expeditions to the Arctic, using his photographs and numerous sketches to form the basis of his many later compositions in oil. As noted by John Wilmerding, "an immensely successful career followed in the wake of his pursuit of the exotic, so similar to Church's. Bradford got extensive backing for later trips, and was subsequently rewrded with publication of his accounts in England and the sale in 1875 of a painting to Queen Victoria." (American Marine Painting, New York, 1987, p. 138)