The Art of Science
Artist’s work displays glacial decline for the world to see
Clemson printmaking professor Todd Anderson keeps good company.
His work, The Last Glacier, was on display at the famed Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Drawings and Prints Gallery along with works by Michelangelo, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya and David Hockney.
The Last Glacier — a book of artwork printed from color woodcuts — explores the remaining glaciers of Glacier National Park in Montana. Anderson collaborated on the book with fellow printmaker Bruce Crownover and Ian van Coller, a professor of photography at Montana State University.
Over the course of four years, the three artists hiked the park’s rugged terrain. Anderson said he has traversed more than 500 miles on foot. The Last Glacier captures the changing world at a pivotal moment in time, helping to visualize the rapid melting of ice that once blanketed Glacier National Park and locations around the world. In 1850, as many as 150 glaciers covered the land now in Glacier National Park. Today, the official park website claims a mere 26 glaciers.
“The hope is that the artwork will connect on an emotional level. Or maybe the science can connect,” Anderson said.
The collective’s next book, ROMO: The Last Glacier, is scheduled for release in 2018. Again, it will pair woodcut prints by Anderson and Crownover with van Coller’s photographs, but this time documenting the last glaciers in Rocky Mountain National Park.