Afternoon along the Coast of Labrador

In the summer of 1861, William Bradford first set out for the northernmost latitudes of the Arctic, visiting Labrador and Greenland to paint some of the earliest images of this remote region. While there, the artist 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. According to art historian William H. Gerdts, the present work "is certainly a superior example of the artist's work, and yet, as a Labrador-iceberg scene, very typical of his mature art and what is most sought after in his painting...[The] picture has an atmospheric clarity and blue sky and water which work best to reveal the icey coldness of these Northern regions. Most of all, of course, it has a multitude of genre interest, in the figures on the shore and in the boats, the shacks on the shore, and the overall suggestion of fishing-whaling activity." (unpublished letter, June 1984)