Bradford Washburn
1910 - 2007
Archive contact: Betsy Cabot (betsywc@yahoo.com)
Bradford Washburn (b. 1910, d. 2007) was an explorer, photographer, mountaineer, and scholar. During his 60-year career as a an aerial landscape photographer, he often could be found inside an airplane flying in below-zero temperatures 20,000 feet above the Earth, balancing precariously in an open doorway, while anchored by a 75-pound camera.
His innovative landscape photography techniques are spectacular and bold; the resulting black and white pictures are breathtaking in their simplicity and elegance. Together with his wife, Barbara, who in 1947 became the first woman to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley, Washburn was honored in 1988 with the Centennial Medal of the National Geographic Society, under whose auspices he conducted numerous geographical explorations. He was responsible for definitive maps of Mt. McKinley, the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest, and New Hampshire's Presidential Range.
When not in the field, Washburn served for over 40 years as the founding director of the highly acclaimed Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts.
Books of interest: Bradford Washburn, Mountain Photography by Antony Decaneas; Mount McKinley, The Conquest of Denali by Bradford Washburn and David Roberts; Escape From Lucania by David Roberts; Bradford Washburn, An Extraordinary Life by Bradford Washburn and Lew Freedman.
For photographic sales contact Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA, 617-267-8929, http://www.panopt.com.