Life in Polar Light: The Photography of Bryan and Cherry Alexander

Dates:

February 4, 2027 - December 12, 2027

Location:

Arctic Museum main galleries

For over 50 years, photojournalists Bryan and Cherry Alexander have been taking photographs in the far north and south. Their work has been largely documentary, although the resulting images often transcend this goal, drawing the viewer into the beauty and wonder of these distant frozen lands and the people who live there.

Acknowledgments
In 2025 the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, acquired over 50,000 images from the Alexanders, comprising the couple’s exceptional life’s work. The collection has significantly deepened and broadened the Museum’s coverage of the Polar regions.

This acquisition was made possible by a generous donation from Rebecca Rowe ’97, additional support from Kane Lodge Foundation, Inc., Caroline and Andy Platt ’66, and Everette E. Dennis, Ph.D.

Selected Works

Bryan’s first trip North was to northwestern Greenland in 1971. People there live in modern houses, but hunters build igloos in wind-packed snow for overnight shelters when traveling in winter and spring.

Picture of Sami reindeer herders — Sami reindeer herders live in northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and northwestern Russia. Bryan and Cherry have photographed their changing lifestyle since 1972.

Picture of remote community of Ittoqqortoomiit — Bryan and Cherry have documented the small, remote community of Ittoqqortoomiit, where tourism is becoming increasingly common as whale and polar bear hunting become more difficult.

picture of people engaged in traditional hunting and fishing. — In Nunavut Bryan photographed contemporary artists at work in addition to people engaged in traditional hunting and fishing.

photograph of Inughuit hunter in Northwest Greenland — **People of the Polar Regions**

People have always been at the center of Bryan’s work. From his first trip to photograph Inughuit hunters in Northwest Greenland in 1971, documenting the Indigenous people of the Arctic has been his life’s work. Over the last 55 years he, and sometimes Cherry, has spent months at a time living and traveling with northern hunters and herders. He often returns to the same communities, having developed long-term relationships with individuals and families. As a result of his long stays, repeat visits, and participation in everyday activities, people have grown to trust him and allow him to photograph them and their families at work and at home.

Ituko and Bryan had many adventures together over the course of their long friendship, from weeks-long trips on the sea ice in search of polar bears to summer narwhal hunts. Ituko was an excellent and adventurous hunter, one of the main providers of meat for his community of Moriussaq.

Picture of Amaunalik Qaavigaq — Amaunalik Qaavigaq worked with Donald MacMillan as a young woman in the 1920s and visited this museum in the 1980s. Her daughter, Navarana K’avigak Sørensen, has collaborated with museum staff on a number of projects and was awarded an honorary degree by Bowdoin College in 2023.

About

About the Artists

Bryan and Cherry Alexander met while studying photography in London in the late 1960s. Working independently and together, they have been photographing the people, places, and wildlife of the Arctic and Antarctic for over five decades.

In his final year of study, Bryan became interested in the challenge of taking photographs in sub-zero temperatures and was intrigued by the Inughuit, traditional hunters of northwestern Greenland. In 1971, not long after graduation, with travel funds from the Royal Society of Arts, he traveled to Northwest Greenland for a four-month stay. His time there was transformative and he spent the rest of his career documenting the lives of Indigenous people across the North. He has since worked in northern Europe, Siberia, Canada, and East Greenland, and he has frequently returned to Northwest Greenland, most recently in February 2026.

Cherry also fell in love with the North. She worked alongside Bryan on some of his trips but also forged her own path as an award-winning wildlife photographer. That work has taken her to less-populated regions, including Svalbard and Antarctica.

Bryan and Cherry’s photographs have appeared in many books and articles and have been widely exhibited in the United Kingdom, Europe, Russia, and Maine.