Simon Norfolk
The Lewis Glacier, Mt. Kenya, 1987

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Artist Simon NorfolkBritish, born Nigeria, 1963

Commissioner The New York Times Magazine

CultureBritish

Titles

The Lewis Glacier, Mt. Kenya, 1987
from the series Stratographs

Date2014

Place depictedKenya

MediumChromogenic print

DimensionsImage: 14 15/16 × 19 15/16 in. (38 × 50.6 cm)
Sheet: 18 7/8 × 23 7/8 in. (48 × 60.7 cm)

Credit LineGift of Dr. Philip Greider in honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker on the occasion of her retirement

Object number2017.351

Not on view

Explore Further

Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionCommissioned by the New York Times Magazine, Norfolk traveled to Africa to photograph the Lewis Glacier, which has lost 90 percent of its volume since it was first mapped in 1934. Setting his camera for hour-long exposures at night, Norfolk carried a burning torch along the glacier’s former boundary lines; in this photograph, for instance, he recorded the extent of the glacier in 1987. Norfolk’s decision to draw the lines with a homemade torch fashioned from a garden rake and a gasoline-soaked scrap of carpet also points to the burning of fossil fuels as a chief cause of global warming and melting glaciers.
ProvenanceThe artist; [Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, California]; Dr. Philip Greider; given to MFAH, 2017.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Stamped in black ink and inscribed in pencil, verso: printed under my direct supervision // archival digital c-type print // Simon Norfolk [signed] // [illegible] // edition number 2/3 // 11-3-15

Signed in pencil, verso: Simon Norfolk

N/A

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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