THE ICE AGE IS STILL ENDING ACCORDING TO ALASKA ARTIST DAVID ROSENTHAL

On view Oct. 4, 2024 – Sept. 14, 2025

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Cordova-based landscape painter David Rosenthal believes the Ice Age isn’t over – it’s still ending. He’s seen it. And, he’s painted it.

With vast amounts of ice locked in mountain glaciers and ice sheets, Alaska holds one of the largest areas of glaciation in the northern hemisphere. Rosenthal’s fascination with glacial icescapes has driven him to capture on canvas the retreat of global ice for the past 45 years. Painted repeatedly over time, many of these glaciers, including paintings of Alaska’s Mendenhall and Portage glaciers, are on view at the Anchorage Museum in the exhibition “Painting at the End of the Ice Age” Oct. 4, 2024, through Sept. 14, 2025.

40 Years on Ice Offers a Visual Chronicle of a Changing Landscape
Rosenthal’s career documenting the retreat of glacial ice and the emergence of post-glacial landscapes coincides with what he sees as the final years of our current geologic Ice Age, offering viewers a visual narrative of change over time. In this exhibition of 67 of his works, paintings are paired with insightful reflections from the artist, alongside perspectives from geologists, oceanographers, biologists, and self-taught naturalists.

“My paintings are from years of observation and analysis of the natural world—more real than photos to human observers because you see what I see… I just happen to be where climate change is so obvious,” says Rosenthal.

Artistic process inspired by science
The paintings in this exhibition are based on information from historical and scientific texts and extrapolation from Rosenthal’s observations and field sketches. He says they represent his best effort to describe accurately the ongoing retreat of the ice, conveying imagined and experienced scenes (from 13,000 BC to 2023), anecdotes from his travels, and reflections on ice and glaciers from Alaska to Antarctica.

In addition to glaciers and ice fields in Alaska, the exhibition also features scenes from the artist’s time on scientific research trips in Antarctica, Greenland, and the Northwest Passage. It includes works that blur the lines between memory and reality, offering imagined scenes from hundreds of years ago, such as what glaciation might have looked like in what is now the Copper River basin.

Blending reality, science, and emotion, “Painting at the End of the Ice Age” is one artist’s visual testament to a changing landscape.

This exhibition is made possible with support from Atwood Foundation.

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OPENING TALK

David Rosenthal introduces the exhibition with a 45-minute presentation at 6:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4. A chance to visit with the artist in the exhibition space follows the talk.

PRESS PREVIEW
News media are invited to a press preview 11 a.m. to noon Thursday, Oct. 3, in the ConocoPhillips Arctic Gallery, second floor, west wing. The artist and museum curators will be available for interviews.

About the Anchorage Museum 
Creatively reflecting a sustainable and equitable North, the Anchorage Museum focuses on people, place, planet and potential. The museum sits on the traditional homeland of the Dena’ina Eklutna. Learn more at www.anchoragemuseum.org.