During the 1910-1913 British Antarctic Expedition, two men working side by side to record one of the most famous ventures in the history of polar exploration – on glass plate negatives and watercolours that had to be finished indoors before the paint froze – discussed holding a joint exhibition of their work back in London.

More than a century later, their ambition has finally been realised in the first exhibition of the photographs of Captain Scott’s fatal last expedition taken by Herbert Ponting and the beautiful paintings of Edward Wilson.

“What they have in common is that they’re not just interested in the bald scientific truth, they are very carefully choosing the views for their artistic effect as well,” curator Charlotte Connelly said. She has hung some together in pairs, when the two men chose strikingly similar viewpoints.



Their work, including the original watercolours, and spectacular new prints made from the glass negatives mounted by the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, will be on display at Bonham’s auctioneers in London this week, alongside contemporary works made by artists in residence in the Antarctic, include Scott’s granddaughter Dafila Scott.

The exhibition never happened because of the tragic fate of Wilson. He died in March 1912, lying beside Scott and Henry Bowers, when they starved and froze to death in their tent after the bitter discovery that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had reached the pole first.

Ponting recalled: “Uncle Bill handed me a parcel which contained all his sketches. He asked me to take charge of it, and deliver it to his wife, telling me that it was his earnest hope that we might have a joint exhibition of our work – his sketches and my photographs.”

Herbert Ponting working in Antarctic conditions. Photograph: Scott Polar Research Institute

Instead, separate exhibitions of their work were held, Wilson’s at the Alpine Club, Ponting’s near the Bonham’s saleroom at the Fine Arts Society.

Ponting, a professional photographer, left the expedition early and got his film and the heavy crates containing more than 1,700 glass negatives safely back to England. Photographs including the expedition ship Terra Nova clenched in the frozen sea and the explorers framed by a cathedral-like ice cave became iconic images of the heroic age of polar exploration, and his film was shown as morale-bracing entertainment to soldiers in the first world war. He lived on until 1935.



Captain Scott and party at the South Pole. Photograph: Scott Polar Research Institute

Wilson, a medical doctor, botanist and talented amateur artist, known as “Uncle Bill” by the team for his cheerful peacemaking nature, had already survived an earlier polar expedition and a terrible trek to collect Emperor penguin eggs in appalling weather, dubbed by one of the members as “the worst journey in the world”. He was one of the closest to Scott of the Terra Nova team and so was chosen to join the small group to make the attempt on the pole.

Capt Scott and team foundering in soft snow. Photograph: Scott Polar Research Institute

Before Ponting left he taught Scott to use a camera, and the leader took the final images in the exhibition, printed from negatives found after his death. One shows an exhausted-looking team hauling and shoving the heavy sled, stumbling and slipping in knee-deep snow, another a line of ponies vanishing into icy fog. “I suspect Scott wouldn’t have been too pleased with these, some are quite out of focus,” Connelly said, “but to me they give a more vivid impression of the infinite whiteness and harshness of the landscape than if they were technically perfect.”

