Honorary Chair
Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008
President
Daniel A. Bennett
Honorary President
James Fowler
|
|
|
|
|
Honorary Chair Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008 |
President Daniel A. Bennett |
Honorary President James Fowler |
|
RESEARCH COLLECTIONS
Artist in the Frozen Zone I would advise my brethren in art, and sisters also, to visit [Arctic Greenland] during the summer months; they will find beauties there of which we never dream in our more temperate zone.
When asked to give his profession in an early Explorers Club questionnaire, Albert Jasper Ludwig Roccabigliera Operti identified himself proudly as an "historical Arctic painter", and indeed this is how he is best remembered today. One of his most famous paintings, The Rescue of the Greely Party, which commemorates the 1884 rescue of Lt. Adolphus W. Greely and six survivors of the U.S. Army's doomed twenty-five-person Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, is now prominently displayed in the Explorers Club library after hanging in the U.S. Capitol during the late nineteenth century. Born in Italy in 1852 and educated in Britain, Operti developed an interest in Arctic history, a fascination piqued by the high-latitude exploits of Robert E. Peary. In 1896, Peary invited Operti to accompany him on an expedition to Greenland to illustrate the recovery of three enormous meteorites that the polar explorers had located the year before and promised to secure for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). More important, Operti was commissioned to make the first plaster casts of native Greenlanders for the museum's anthropology department--an opportunity he considered an " honor". This trip and another the following summer exposed Operti to the Far North, which was to be the inspiration for hundreds of oil sketches, illustrations, paintings, and sculptures he would later create. In an article titled "Artist in the Frozen Zone", which was included in the 1902 volume "The White World" issued by the Arctic Club, Operti commented extensively on the Greenland expeditions and their influence on his life. Some of the most appealing pieces in the Operti oeuvre are not the richly worked, grand scenes of tragedy and suspense in Arctic exploration, but quick washes and studies, like those in his voluminous scrapbooks, which he donated to The Explorers Club. As too many explorers know, expeditions are rarely significant sources of income: Operti earned his living for many years as a scene painter at the Metropolitan Opera and various Broadway theaters before moving in 1921 to the exhibits department of the AMNH. There he executed a wide range of murals and friezes for dioramas and halls, but his first love remained the Arctic and its history. In addition to his art, he amassed a substantial library on polar exploration and natural history. Many of these volumes, with Operti's extensive annotations, clippings, and marginalia, form the core of the Club's rich Arctic library. Albert Operti did not go north again after 1897 but remained a very active member of the Arctic Club, and its sister organization The Explorers Club, until his death in 1927. Indeed, Operti died at The Explorers Club, in its former quarters at 47 West 76th Street, where he had made his home the last several years of his life. As he once wrote, "I have resolved to devote my life to the cause of learning In place of a life of ease and freedom, I have chosen a career of anziety and toil. A man has higher responsibilities than the seeking of his own enjoyment". Reprinted from The Explorers Journal, Summer 2003. Previous articles
|
|
| Contact Us |
|
© 2002 The Explorers Club Legal Notice
The Explorers Club is a not-for-profit organization as defined under Section 170(b) (I) (A) (vi) and 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Explorers Club ®, World Center for Exploration ®, The Flag and the Seal are registered trademarks of The Explorers Club. Use by others is strictly prohibited. Photographs appearing on this website are used by permission and may not be copied or re-used in any manner. |
