#FortLadd

[archivesofamericanart]

Archives Road Trip: Alaska 

During World War II, Henry Varnum Poor (1887–1970) was stationed in Alaska as a war correspondent tasked with documenting soldier life at Ladd Army Airfield in Fairbanks. Major Poor sketched this view of the Yukon River from a military plane. “The pattern of tundra…seen from a height of 7,000 feet, is an intricate abstract arrangement in curves,” he wrote in his book manuscript An Artist Sees Alaska.

This sketchbook is currently on view in our exhibition, Off the Beaten Track: A Road Trip through the Archives of American Art on view through June 3 in our Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery in Washington, D.C.