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Homage to Shackleton

Description:

Homage to Shackleton (South Pole Station)

Xavier Cortada, "Shackleton in the South Pole," mixed-media on canvas, 24" x 18", 2007.

During his stay in Antarctica, Cortada created a portrait of Sir Ernest Shackleton, who came within 97 miles of being the first to reach the South Pole. In a follow-up expedition, the Antarctic explorer attempted to traverse the continent but wound marooned with his 27 men on a polar ice floe. Enduring the harshest conditions for almost two years, they all survived.

Cortada thought to honor Shackleton by "placing him" permanently in the South Pole, the place that so eluded him in life. The artist hopes that Shackleton's portrait (which is on permanent exhibit inside the United States' Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station) serves to inspire those now working in the most inhospitable of continents, especially those who winter during cold, dark months in the South Pole.



On January 4, 2007, Cortada presented his "Shackleton in the South Pole" painting to the South Pole Station's NSF Representative Jerry Marty and Station Manager B. K. Grant at the Geographic South Pole, conceptually bringing the Shackleton to the place he so longed to reach. The artist created the portrait using canvas, acrylic paint, crushed Mt. Erebus crystals, soil samples from the Dry Valleys, soil samples from Ross Island, McMurdo Sound seawater, GIS maps of the Antarctic continent, copies of historic photographs and maps of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expeditions. In essence, through his painting, Shackleton brought to the South Pole pieces of the continent he "opened" for the rest of us to experience.