Famous for his iconic photographs of African wildlife, Peter Beard’s work is both haunting and captivating. As an avid journalist and photographer, Beard started documenting from a young age, traveling to Africa for the first time in 1955. Beard resided in Kenya where he started work at Tsavo National Park, documenting thousands of animals, including elephants, as depicted here. During his time at the Park, Beard witnessed an encroachment of the elephant population, resulting in detrimental conditions for various wildlife. This crisis resulted in the death of many animals.

Peter Beard (American, 1938 - 2020) was a photographer and diarist whose mesmerizing images of East Africa emphasize the affinities between humans and animals, and advocate for endangered species. Beard became fascinated with the African wildlife after a life-changing trip in the 1950s. After studying at Yale under artists including Joseph Albers, he began working at Kenya’s Tsavo National Park in the 1960s. Horrified by rampant poaching and natural degradation, he documented the demise of elephants and rhinoceroses in Tsavo—a project that became his best-known book, The End of the Game (1977). In the 1970s, Beard started working in fashion and became a fixture of New York City nightlife, dividing his time between Manhattan and the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Beard’s first major solo exhibition took place in 1977 at the International Center of Photography, New York, and his first career retrospective was launched in 1996 at the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris.