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WILLIAM BRADFORD (American, 1823-1892) Martha's Vineyard, circa 1860s Oil on canvas 6 x 10 inches (15.2 x 25.4 cm) Signed lower right (conjoined): WBradford THE JEAN AND GRAHAM DEVOE WILLIFORD CHARITABLE TRUST PROVENANCE: Spanierman Galleries, New York (label verso). This extraordinary mid-nineteenth-century painting of the coast of the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard by William Bradford is astonishingly modern in appearance and conception. Studying the particulars of the island's topography from the vantage point of a ship off the coast, Bradford created an almost minimalist composition of horizontal bands of color--sea, sand, trees and sky--with a palette that resembles that of Fairfield Porter. Beginning in the 1860s, shortly after the death of his friend and artistic mentor, Albert Van Beest, with whom he often collaborated on marine paintings, Bradford began a series of trips to Nova Scotia, Labrador, and Greenland, to paint and photograph the Arctic region. These artistic endeavors became a consuming interest. He also published a book in London titled The Arctic Region, which he vividly illustrated with photographs pasted onto the page and he gave lectures accompanied by lantern slides of his paintings which earned him wide international recognition. Like this painting of Martha's Vineyard, Bradford's style was more realistic than impressionistic, and his composition was strong and clear.