Maritime Museum News

Arctic Adventures

Salem, MA -

Fifteen years ago the Cubberley & Shaw Maritime Museum News began with a story about an exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM). Now at the end of our run we return to the PEM to look at a special pair of exhibits about the Polar Regions.

Last month we visited the major new exhibition “To the Ends of the Earth, Painting the Polar Landscape.” The show fills three large galleries with some of the most famous and beautiful images of the Arctic regions. The mammoth panoramic works of William Bradford were the “blockbusters” of the mid-nineteenth century. There are paintings that dramatically depict the battle of famous explorers in wooden ships battling the powerful ice flows and darkness. There are also many images that seek to capture the elusive beauty of the colors reflected by icebergs and beamed by the aurorae. Twentieth century painters from Rockwell Kent to Lawren Harris continued the effort to capture on canvas the glow of Arctic light.

The last image in the exhibit, however, is a large photograph by John Paul Caponigro of small bergs drifting in a calm bay. This image connects with the PEM’s other big Arctic exhibit entitled According to Jane Winchell, Director of the Art & Nature Center. “Polar Attractions.” This show is located in the Museum’s interactive Art & Nature Center. “This exhibition encourages families to experience the polar regions through artwork and activities that demonstrate how nature and human influences have shaped these distinct, biologically important ecosystems over time. Visitors will be surprised by the range of color, scale and texture in the show. We hope they will think of this exhibition as an opportunity to see parts of the world most of us will never have a chance to visit.”

To learn more visit the PEM online at:

http://pem.org/ or phone 978.745.9500


Homeport Arctic Adventures Salem, MA - Fifteen years ago the Cubberley & Shaw Maritime Museum News began with a story about an exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM). Now at the end of our run we return to the PEM to look at a special pair of exhibits about the Polar Regions. Last month we visited the major new exhibition “To the Ends of the Earth, Painting the Polar Landscape.” The show fills three large galleries with some of the most famous and beautiful images of the Arctic regions. The mammoth panoramic works of William Bradford were the “blockbusters” of the mid-nineteenth century. There are paintings that dramatically depict the battle of famous explorers in wooden ships battling the powerful ice flows and darkness. There are also many images that seek to capture the elusive beauty of the colors reflected by icebergs and beamed by the aurorae. Twentieth century painters from Rockwell Kent to Lawren Harris continued the effort to capture on canvas the glow of Arctic light. The last image in the exhibit, however, is a large photograph by John Paul Caponigro of small bergs drifting in a calm bay. This image connects with the PEM’s other big Arctic exhibit entitled According to Jane Winchell, Director of the Art & Nature Center. “Polar Attractions.” This show is located in the Museum’s interactive Art & Nature Center. “This exhibition encourages families to experience the polar regions through artwork and activities that demonstrate how nature and human influences have shaped these distinct, biologically important ecosystems over time. Visitors will be surprised by the range of color, scale and texture in the show. We hope they will think of this exhibition as an opportunity to see parts of the world most of us will never have a chance to visit.” To learn more visit the PEM online at: http://pem.org/ or phone 978.745.9500 Back to Top