I’ll Write Wherever I Can…
Peter Beard
PETER BEARD, c.1960. SILVER GELATIN PRINT WITH OIL PAINT, BLOOD, NATURAL ELEMENTS, AND COLLAGE.
Peter Beard was the last of his kind. A handsome playboy and heir to a railroad fortune, he could have stayed in New York and ridden on his charm, wealth and good looks for his whole life. Yet Beard had a yearning for adventure, and a photographic ability quite unrivalled in the 20th Century. At the age of 18 he visited Kenya for the first time, and five years later began working at Tsavo National Park, where he photographed the mass demise of 35,000 elephants across the great plains of the park. Inspired and enthralled, Beard purchased a ranch nearby which would become his life-long home base. Beard photographed the Kenyan world around him, the wild-life, the landscapes, his domestic existence and his guests from the high societies of the east coast. A keen diarist, each photograph became a unique work as Beard incorporated his drawings, collages from his journals and paintings in blood, both animal and his own. It is as if in each work he attempts to display the magnitude and variety of his life, a life in the wilderness and a life lived wildly.