Herbert G. Ponting, 1871-1935

Silver Contact Prints, comprising images of the Antarctic landscape, pictures of crew and expedition members on board the Terra Nova and on land, living quarters and scientific equipment, including an image of the photographer developing in his darkroom at Cape Evans, the majority numbered and annotated in pencil on the reverse in an unknown hand,

See A. Savours (ed.) 1974 & H. Ponting 1999 (1921) for illustrations of various prints in this lot. 

In April 1911, Captain Scott wrote of Ponting's photographs: 'Of the many admirable points in his work, perhaps the most notable are Ponting's eye for a picture and the mastery he has acquired of ice subjects....He is an artist in love with his work...'  Indeed, although there is no record of Ponting having received any formal art education, he described himself as a 'Camera Artist' and revelled in the beauty of his Antarctic surroundings.  Above all, Ponting was a meticulous craftsman and master technician.  He used his great technical skill as a means of documentation, saying, of his 1921 publication The Great White South, 'Its object is to present, in simple language and pictures, some fresh aspects of the setting of that epic Polar drama which must ever stand out in the annals of exploration...' (see H. Ponting 1999 (1921), vii).

Ponting's work as a photographer of the Antarctic is equalled only by that of Frank Hurley during Shackleton's 1914-17 expedition (see following two lots).