Peter Beard

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Peter Beard (2014)

Peter Hill Beard (born January 22, 1938 in New York City , † March 31 or April 2020 at Montauk ) was an American photographer , artist and author who was best known for his wildlife photography .

Life

Peter Beard studied art from 1957 to 1961 with Josef Albers at Yale University in New Haven . He came from a wealthy family - his great-grandfather James Jerome Hill was the founder of the Great Northern Railway Company - and could afford a life in the jet set society; For example, he was friends with Truman Capote and often seen with Bianca Jagger or Caroline Lee Radziwill , the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis .

He became known for his series of pictures of Africa and his portrait photos, including taking pictures of David Bowie , Mick Jagger , Veruschka Countess von Lehndorff , Iman and the Irish painter Francis Bacon , for whom he himself was a model several times. He worked as a fashion photographer for Vogue magazine .

Beard was married several times and made numerous adventurous journeys through Africa, among other things he systematically photographed the dying and dead elephants in 1971/1972. His friend, the Danish author and Africa expert Karen Blixen, encouraged him to pursue his startling photographic work across the continent. He set up his Hog Ranch in their neighborhood in Kenya in 1961 and stayed in Africa for a total of 23 years.

He wrote a diary from his youth; they are book collages with drawings and glued on them. In a similar way, he also gave his recordings special expressiveness by expanding them with animal blood and pictures, with newspaper extracts and stories.

Beard last lived in New York City. He was found dead on April 19, 2020 at Camp Hero State Park , a Montauk wildlife sanctuary, after being missing for three weeks. Nothing is known about the cause of death. He left behind his wife, Najma Khamm, and daughter Zara, for whom he wrote the book Zara's Tales in 2004.

"The last hunt"

In Africa, Peter Beard found the central theme of his life, the destruction of the natural animal world by humans and civilization. His most important work is his frequently published and "meanwhile a classic" illustrated book " The End of the Game" (published in Germany and Switzerland under the title The Last Hunt ), which was published in a revised version worldwide by Taschen in 2008 with a foreword by travel writer Paul Theroux came out. The book caused a scandal when it was published in 1965 because “the cruelty of the photographs revealed something shocking. Elephant carcasses sink like scars into the African soil, gigantic skeletal mountains pale in the sun, stripped zebra pelts spread to the horizon, on top the white hunter sits proudly ”.

Africa's history is presented here in six chapters, including texts about the construction of railways in East Africa, Beard's elephant and hippopotamus studies, drawings and old images, and he pursues a mission with his book: “He wants human behavior in one reveal a previously functioning, holistic world [...] Beard shows the continent in its tremendous dynamism, which, once disturbed, leads to catastrophe. "The last chapter is entitled" The animal dies without fear and hope "and shows only pictures, which deal with the tragic mass extinction of elephants and the destruction of their habitat, for example trees that were completely bald by the starving animals.

Quote

“I don't like producing art. I avoid consciously making art. I went to art academy. I'm sick of art now. My whole life has been shaped by fleeing from art academy. Art academy teaches you exactly the opposite of art. I am not a person who suffers from it. I just believe that you should just do things and try them out without wasting too much thought on them beforehand. I accept the great artists like Andy Warhol, Duchamp , Francis Bacon, Picasso, Rauschenberg . They are all great artists, but there are very, very few. "

- Peter Beard

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • 1993: Seibu Museum, Tokyo
  • 1999: KunstHausWien
  • 2000: Galeries Lafayette , Paris
  • 2001: The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburg, USA
  • 2003: Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris
  • 2004/05: Fahey / Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, USA.
  • 2006: Gallery Camera Work, Berlin
  • 2006/07: Michael Hoppen Gallery, London

Group exhibitions

  • 2002: Vincent van Gogh Foundation, Arles, France
  • 2004: La Triennale di Milano, Milan
  • 2004: The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, USA

Publications

  • The end of the game. The Last Word from Paradise. Taschen, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-8365-0531-4 .
  • Peter Beard. Art Edition. Pocket America, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8228-2606-5 .
  • Zara's Tales. From Hog Ranch. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 2004, ISBN 978-0-679-42659-2 .
  • Peter Beard. Star. No. 26. Special. Photography. Gruner and Jahr, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-570-19317-9 .
  • Works of art in steel. Masterpieces by American engravers and gunsmiths. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-613-02077-7 .
  • The law of the prairie. The weapons of the wild west. Text by RL Wilson, photographs by Peter Beard. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-613-01634-6 .
  • Death of the wild. Obituary for a paradise. Rogner and Bernhard, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-8077-0099-4 .
  • Longing for Darkness. Kamante's Tales from Out of Africa. Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich, New York / London 1975, ISBN 0-15-153080-7 .
  • The last hunt. Bucher, Lucerne / Frankfurt am Main 1965.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Beard is dead. In: Spiegel Online , April 20, 2020. Accessed on April 20, 2020 (more precisely: already missing since March 31, 2020).
  2. ↑ Hong Kong, Cologne, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo (in four languages ​​and correspondingly different ISBNs)
  3. ↑ a b Gesine Hindemith: The continent soaked in animal blood. In: FAZ . August 6, 2008 .;
  4. ↑ Peter Beard in an interview with Peter Badge in 1998
personal data
SURNAME Beard, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beard, Peter Hill (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer, artist, and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH between March 31, 2020 and April 30, 2020
Place of death at Montauk