Brandenburg Gallery

This is the coolest gallery in Ely, hands down. BUT it’s SO expensive, and is always awkwardly quiet.
If I had the money to buy prints and photos and beautiful glass sculptures from this gallery, I totally would. But it’s rare to find something under $ 100, and if you do then it’s probably super tiny and not really worth the money (unless you have it). But Brandenburg’s work is phenomenal, so go here if you’re rollin’ and need some art for your house.

Glistening expanses of snowy plains, baby caribou running side by side, stark white Arctic foxes curled against the wind or perched high up on the side of an icy bank, and the iconic photograph of one of the white wolves of Ellesmere Island leaping from one ice floe to another… If you grew up reading National Geographic, you remember these photographs. And you already know Jim Brandenburg.
An internationally renowned photographer, he opened his gallery in Ely, where he makes his home in the nearby forest. The gallery began in a small space upstairs in a local outfitters shop, but eventually moved up the street to its own independent location whose modest interior belies the reputation of its occupant.
While most people know Brandenburg especially through his photographic chronicles of Arctic animals, his material is wider-​ranging yet highly personal as well, encompassing the North Woods, expansive prairies of the upper Midwest, the Inuit people, and African wildlife. His work is simple, with beauty highlighted as fleeting and natural violence as an element of existence. And sometimes both together.
The gallery itself has an extensive selection of prints, posters, and other Brandenburg products in a fairly wide price range, and there is a small theater where you can view some of his associated video projects as well. A perfect place to lose yourself in a landscape, an eye, or petaled tendrils drifting forever in a breeze.