A rare surviving document of public entertainment, capturing the "Heroic Age" of polar exploration.
This series of three large-scale narrative panels depicts the high drama of Arctic exploration: a hunter takes aim from a desolate camp, a musher drives his team through a blizzard, and a sled capsizes on treacherous, broken ice floes. Painted with the direct, graphic clarity required for a travelling fairground, the artist uses a cool palette of blues and whites to evoke the harsh, frozen landscape, rendering the scenes with a robust, illustrative realism. These are not easel paintings but vernacular objects, working artifacts of popular culture designed to thrill and educate a public captivated by the adventure and peril of the race to the poles.
Medium: Oil or enamel on board
Inscription on Front: An indistinct stencil monogram is visible on one panel.
Condition: The boards are unframed. All show significant wear, scuffing, paint loss, and surface dirt, consistent with their history as functional fairground attractions.
