Artist Research - Wilson Bentley

Wilson Bentley was born on 10^th February 1865, in Jericho, Vermont.  He was one of the first known photographers of snowflakes. 

It was when he was a teenager that his interest first began with snowflakes, as his mother gave him a microscope when he was 15 and he tried to draw what he saw.  The snowflakes were too difficult to draw though as they melted too quickly so he attached a bellows camera to a compound microscope and after a lot of experimentation, he photographed his first snowflake on 15^th January 1885. 

Wilson Bentley

He perfected this fine art of photography by catching the snowflakes on some black velvet and captured their beauty before they melted.

Wilson Bentley captures over 5000 images of snowflakes in his lifetime and never once did he find 2 that were alike.  He described them as ‘tiny miracles of beauty’.  He also photographed all forms of ice and natural water formations including clouds and fog, and he was the first American to record raindrop sizes and he was one of the first cloud physicists.  He since went on to publish articles in magazines including National Geographic, Nature, Popular Science and Scientific American.

Wilson Bentley died of pneumonia at his farm on 23^rd December 1931 after walking 6 miles in a blizzard.  He was trying to capture more snowflakes.  He was memorialized in the naming of a science centre in his memory at Johnson State College, in Johnson, Vermont.

Wow, I always thought that snowflakes were symmetrical and formed an exact pattern on all sides.  It was something that I was probably led to believe when I was younger, when I was taught to make and draw snowflakes.  This man was truly remarkable, how for years, he tried to photograph these objects of natural beauty.  Then one day it all came right for him, and people have been learning from his work ever since.  They are like he described them – ‘tiny miracles of beauty’.