News | March 18, 2024

Early Maps, Photographs and Artists’ Books Chart 500 years of the Arctic

New York Public Library

Gerrit de Veer, VVaerachtighe Beschryvinghe Uan drie seylagien (Amstelredam: Cornelis Claesz, 1598). Engraving, 7.8 x 19.5 in (19.6 x 49.5 cm). 

The Awe of the Arctic: A Visual History looks at how the Arctic has been visually depicted from the 16th century to the present, and runs through July 13 at the New York Public Library.

The exhibition is drawn almost exclusively from the Library’s rich collections and focuses on the popular mediated forms such as narrative textual accounts, prints, photographs, and ephemera that convey the region’s sublime beauty and mystery as well as its complexity. Ranging from early maps and largely imagined landscapes of the 16th and 17th centuries, to 20th century photographs documenting the race for the North Pole and contemporary visions of climate change and Indigenous life, the exhibition traces multiple histories of landscape, colonialism, science, and popular culture. 

Highlights include:

  • Gerrit de Veer’s Waerachtighe Beschryvinghe from 1598: the first best-selling expedition narrative
  • A previously unknown letter describing the Arctic from the surgeon onboard the HMS Erebus 
  • Financer George Frederick Norton’s personal photographic album documenting Robert Peary and Matthew Henson’s 1909 expedition
  • William Bradford’s The Arctic Regions and select photographs from the artistic expedition
  • Rare stereographs from the Austro-Hungarian Arctic expedition of Julius von Payer
Wilhelm Joseph Burger, "Le Tegetthoff au milieu des glaces, à minuit en août, à la Nouvelle-Zemble," from Expèdition au Pôle nord par le Compte Wilczek, 1872. Albumen silver print stereograph, 3.4 × 7 in (8.7 x 17.8 cm).
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New York Public Library

Wilhelm Joseph Burger, Le Tegetthoff au milieu des glaces, à minuit en août, à la Nouvelle-Zemble, from Expèdition au Pôle nord par le Compte Wilczek, 1872. Albumen silver print stereograph, 3.4 × 7 in (8.7 x 17.8 cm).

John Lapham Dunmore and George P. Critcherson, from William Bradford's The Arctic Regions (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1873). Albumen silver print, 11.4 x 15.9 (28.9 x 40.3 cm).
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New York Public Library

John Lapham Dunmore and George P. Critcherson, from William Bradford's The Arctic Regions (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1873). Albumen silver print, 11.4 x 15.9 (28.9 x 40.3 cm).

At the Pole with Cook and Peary: a pictorial record of the most important and sensational geographical discovery of recent times ... (Portland, Me.: L.H. Nelson, 1909). 8 x 10 in (20.3 x 25.4 cm).
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New York Public Library

At the Pole with Cook and Peary: a pictorial record of the most important and sensational geographical discovery of recent times ... (Portland, Me.: L.H. Nelson, 1909). 8 x 10 in (20.3 x 25.4 cm). 

“The Arctic is so fascinating because it's such an enormous region that crosses many borders and yet, it is foreign for so many of us. The region has a rich history, is incredibly diverse, and has always been in constant flux,” said Elizabeth Cronin, Robert B. Menschel Curator of Photography. “I wanted to do this exhibition on the Arctic so that the people can think about how they imagine the Arctic to be and how that idea compares with the reality of its spaces.”  

Beginning in The Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery, the exhibition showcases the earliest Western accounts of the Arctic lands, its animals, and its people, and also focuses on the heavily illustrated expedition chronicles and colored lithographic portfolios that commemorated the British expeditions during the Victorian Era. These are followed by a wave of American and European pursuits in the Arctic. 

The exhibition continues in the Celeste Gottesman Bartos and Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos Exhibitions Gallery as it dives deeper into the popular visual culture of the Arctic. The books, stereographs, scrapbooks, photographs, postcards and objects on display emphasize the widespread appeal of arctic disasters and triumphs. The variety of media also shows how print technologies affected our imagination.

Concluding on the third floor, in the Rayner Special Collections Wing and Print Gallery, the exhibition showcases 21st century photographs, prints, and artists’ books portraying the environment of the Arctic today. Also featured will be work by artists who are Indigenous to the Arctic regions.

A richly illustrated 288-page exhibition catalogue co-published by New York Public Library and Hatje Cantz will accompany the exhibition. Edited by Elizabeth Cronin, it features scholarly essays on early modern Arctic prints by the print curator Madeleine Viljoen, the 19th century Arctic landscape by the exhibition’s curator Elizabeth Cronin, and a joint essay on the contemporary works by the curator and Maggie Mustard, co-organizer of the exhibition and Assistant Curator of Photography. It also contains 11 object-focused texts by New York Public Library staff members, as well as an extensive bibliography.

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