Peter Beard, Art Edition No. 126–250 ‘965 Elephants’

This Art Edition of Peter Beard’s SUMO-sized monograph traces the artist’s illustrious oeuvre immersed in the Kenyan landscape. It includes collage artworks—reproduced as a group for the first time, revelatory diary spreads, and richly textured ephemera in one leather-bound volume, presented on a wooden bookstand. The tome comes with the 1978/2006 gelatin silver print 965 Elephants, a stunning aerial view of a landscape teaming with majestic animals.

Limited Art Edition of 125 copies, each with the gelatin silver print 965 Elephants, 1978/2006, signed by Peter Beard

Collector’s Edition B No. 126–250
 

• Limited to 125 numbered copies, each signed by Peter Beard
• Accompanied by the gelatin silver print 965 Elephants (1978/2006) signed by the artist
• Sumptuous leather cover
• Packaged in a velvet-lined wooden shipping crate

Photographer, collector, diarist, and writer of books Peter Beard has fashioned his life into a work of art; the illustrated diaries he kept from a young age evolved into a serious career as an artist and earned him a central position in the international art world. He was painted by Francis Bacon, painted on by Salvador Dalí, and made diaries with Andy Warhol; he toured with Truman Capote and the Rolling Stones, created books with Jacqueline Onassis and Mick Jagger—all of whom are brought to life, literally and figuratively, in his work. As a fashion photographer, he took Vogue stars like Veruschka to Africa and brought new ones—most notably Iman—back to the U.S. with him.

His love affair with natural history and wildlife, which informs most of his work, began when he was a teenager. He had read the books of Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) and after spending time in Kenya and befriending the author, bought a piece of land near hers. It was the early 1960s and the big game hunters led safaris, with all the colonial elements Beard had read about in Out of Africa characterizing the open life and landscape, but the times were changing. Beard witnessed the dawn of Kenya’s population explosion, which challenged finite resources and stressed animal populations—including the starving elephants of Tsavo, dying by the tens of thousands in a wasteland of eaten trees. So he documented what he saw—with diaries, photographs, and collages. He went against the wind in publishing unique and sometimes shocking books of these works. The corpses were laid bare; the facts were carefully written down sometimes in type, often by hand, occasionally with blood.

Spilling out over the pages of this massive tome, Peter Beard’s collages are reproduced as a group for the first time at the size they have always meant to be seen, some as fold-outs. Hundreds of smaller-scale works and diaries fill the remaining spreads—magnified to show every detail, from Beard’s meticulous handwriting and old-master-inspired drawings to stones and bones and bits of animals pasted to the page. Available in both Art and Collector’s editions, this opulent and beautifully crafted limited edition—complete with wooden stand—is a work of art in itself.