Illuminate the Polar Past
Sunday, December 13 • 2:00 pm
Frederick A. Cook, Polar History with Eva Molina Flores and the Art of Lizzie Wright
The Frederick Cook Society invites you to an afternoon of polar history and contemporary art on Sunday, December 13, at 2 p.m.
First, we are pleased to share notable recognition of Dr. Cook’s literary work. Maria Popova, the Bulgarian-born, American-based writer, essayist, and poet behind the widely acclaimed blog The Marginalian, has written about Cook’s classic Through the First Antarctic Night. An excerpt from her essay follows:
“Half a century after Thoreau, half a world away, the explorer, physician, and ethnographer Frederick Cook (June 10, 1865–August 5, 1940) composed a stunning study of contrasts through a winter of a different order in Through the First Antarctic Night, subtitled A Narrative of the Voyage of the ‘Belgica’ Among Newly Discovered Lands and Over an Unknown Sea About the South Pole—a forgotten masterpiece, kindred and in many ways superior to Thoreau’s famed journals, for it chronicles, in lyrical prose and with immense psychological insight, the triumph of the human spirit over circumstances infinitely more trying than the tranquil contemplative life on the shores of Walden Pond.”
Read the full essay at themarginalian.org/2019/09/04/through-the-first-antarctic-night-frederick-cook/
Eva Molina Flores
An Afternoon of Polar History and Art
On Sunday, December 13, 2026, at 2 p.m., polar historian Eva Molina Flores will present a talk entitled True North: Frederick Cook and the Making of an American Explorer.
Molina Flores is a PhD candidate in the History of Science at Princeton University, where her research examines the cultural mythology of polar exploration. She also writes and speaks about polar history for public audiences, including at the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Public Library. Drawing on Cook’s disputed claim to have reached the North Pole and the larger arc of his remarkable career, she will explore the roles that truth, storytelling, and public perception played in the making of polar heroes. More than a century later, why does Cook’s story still provoke debate and hold our imagination?
Illuminated Icebergs
After the lecture, guests are invited upstairs to the Society’s gallery for the opening of Illuminated Icebergs, an exhibition by artist Lizzie Wright.
Artist: Lizzie Wright
Wright’s work offers a contemporary interpretation of Cook’s historic photographs of icebergs and glaciers. Once described by Cook as “ages of frozen power adrift,” these monumental forms carry an increasingly urgent resonance. In this series, Wright enlarges and illuminates prints from The Cook Society’s collection, sometimes digitally transforming them back into negatives. Lit from within, the photographs emphasise the scale, texture, and otherworldly beauty of ice while bringing Cook’s historical images into the context of contemporary art.
Two complementary perspectives
Together, Eva Molina Flores and Lizzie Wright offer two complementary perspectives on Cook’s legacy: the history and mythology of polar exploration, and the visual beauty of the frozen landscapes he documented.
Wright lives and works in New York City and Livingston Manor. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University, and currently works at the Catskill Art Space. Her artistic practice frequently employs light as a vehicle for mood, tone, and emotion, evoking a profound sense of spirituality and otherworldly presence.
For more information please email:
carolsmith2223@gmail.com