Elephant Reaching for the Last Branch on a Tree, Kenya, June 1960

Details

PETER BEARD (b.1938)
Elephant Reaching for the Last Branch on a Tree, Kenya, June 1960
oversized gelatin silver print with collaged photo
signed, dated and annotated in ink on recto
61 x 40¼in. (154.9 x 104.5cm.)

Provenance

With The Time is Always Now, New York;
acquired by present owner.

Literature

Beard, The End of the Game, Viking, 1965, frontispiece; Beard, The End of the Game, Doubleday, 1977, n.p.; Peter Beard: Fifty Years of Portraits, Arena, 1999, p.171.

Special Notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

According to the studio of the artist, Beard considers this a very important image from his first book The End of the Game. In this image, a single elephant reaches for the last branch of a tree, serving as a harbinger of what was to come: a massive die-off in Tsavo, later known as 'Starvo' Park, of over 30,000 elephants from over-population and mis-managment by National Park authorities.

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