Bradford Washburn (1910–⁠2007) was an American mountaineer, cartographer, photographer and student of Alaska's mountains and glaciers. Washburn established the Boston Museum of Science and served as its director from 1939 to 1980. But he was best known for ascending multiple Alaska peaks over the course of two-and-a-half decades and for pioneering aerial photography while surveying Denali in the 1930s. This exhibition presents a selection of photographs from the Anchorage Museum collection.

These black and white images were taken between 1930 and 1979 in the Coast Range, Alaska Range, the Chugach and St. Elias Mountains. Washburn's photographic work incorporated aerial documentation of the landscape, as well as abstracted views of the stark contrast between shadowed abyss and sunlit snow. The photographs on view in this exhibition demonstrate Washburn’s ongoing fascination with the beauty of Alaska’s peaks and glaciers.