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William Bradford
1823–1892
BirthplaceFairhaven, Massachusetts, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyMarine painter William Bradford devoted his career to depicting the frozen north in images drawn from first-hand exploration. Bradford, son of a Quaker whaling merchant, was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, across the harbor from New Bedford, at a time when both towns’ fleets dominated the American whaling industry. Failing in the dry-goods business because he was more interested in art, the young Bradford began to paint ship portraits notable for their convincing detail. He was undoubtedly familiar with the tranquil harbor and shore views of marine painter Fitz Henry Lane, who sometimes painted in New Bedford. In the mid-1850s, Bradford and the New York-based Dutch artist Albert Van Beest (1820–1860) collaborated on harbor and shipwreck scenes. The characteristic tight drawing and still, light-infused compositions that Bradford appears to have absorbed from Lane changed under Van Beest’s influence to include dynamic arrangements and active subjects.
Bradford’s individual style developed in response to the influence of the light and subjects he encountered in the Arctic. After several initial visits to Labrador in the mid-1850s, he visited the coast of Maine and the Bay of Fundy, producing views that established his reputation. At a time when the public—and American artists—were increasingly fascinated by exotic regions and climatic extremes, Bradford’s paintings began to command high prices. He moved to New York in 1860 and worked in a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building, where his fellow tenants included the landscapist Frederic Edwin Church, painter of mammoth canvases of exotic South American and Arctic scenery. Intent on staking out the far north as his trademark subject, Bradford joined the ranks of such artist-explorers. In 1861, with the backing of a Boston patron, he chartered a schooner for the first of six summer voyages to Labrador and beyond. In 1869, Bradford ventured some five thousand miles into the Arctic in the company of noted explorers. Photographers sometimes joined these expeditions; Bradford himself eventually took up photography as a studio aid in painting dramatic, detailed scenes of frozen oceans, towering icebergs, and stranded vessels.
Bradford went to England in 1871 to capitalize on intense interest there in the Arctic. In addition to commissioning a painting, Queen Victoria headed the list of subscribers to Bradford’s ornate, photographically illustrated publication The Arctic Regions. In England, Bradford began an active second career as lecturer on his northern travels. He returned to the United States in 1874, the same year he was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in New York, and continued to paint with increasing reliance on photography as an aid. In his last decades, Bradford traveled and painted in the far west, using a studio in San Francisco as his base. As his style and subjects became outmoded toward the century’s end, Bradford increasingly confined himself to delivering public lectures about his earlier adventures. When he died in New York just before his sixty-ninth birthday, his art had largely been forgotten.
Bradford’s individual style developed in response to the influence of the light and subjects he encountered in the Arctic. After several initial visits to Labrador in the mid-1850s, he visited the coast of Maine and the Bay of Fundy, producing views that established his reputation. At a time when the public—and American artists—were increasingly fascinated by exotic regions and climatic extremes, Bradford’s paintings began to command high prices. He moved to New York in 1860 and worked in a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building, where his fellow tenants included the landscapist Frederic Edwin Church, painter of mammoth canvases of exotic South American and Arctic scenery. Intent on staking out the far north as his trademark subject, Bradford joined the ranks of such artist-explorers. In 1861, with the backing of a Boston patron, he chartered a schooner for the first of six summer voyages to Labrador and beyond. In 1869, Bradford ventured some five thousand miles into the Arctic in the company of noted explorers. Photographers sometimes joined these expeditions; Bradford himself eventually took up photography as a studio aid in painting dramatic, detailed scenes of frozen oceans, towering icebergs, and stranded vessels.
Bradford went to England in 1871 to capitalize on intense interest there in the Arctic. In addition to commissioning a painting, Queen Victoria headed the list of subscribers to Bradford’s ornate, photographically illustrated publication The Arctic Regions. In England, Bradford began an active second career as lecturer on his northern travels. He returned to the United States in 1874, the same year he was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in New York, and continued to paint with increasing reliance on photography as an aid. In his last decades, Bradford traveled and painted in the far west, using a studio in San Francisco as his base. As his style and subjects became outmoded toward the century’s end, Bradford increasingly confined himself to delivering public lectures about his earlier adventures. When he died in New York just before his sixty-ninth birthday, his art had largely been forgotten.