Artifacts in the Life of Peter Beard

[caption id="attachment_52207" align="alignnone" width="800"] Peter Beard "Children and Elephant, Lake Victoria." Gelatin silver print with watercolor and tempera paint.[/caption]

By Dawn Watson

Most photographers spend their lives in search of that one iconic image that will secure their place in history. Peter Beard has taken dozens, if not hundreds, of them.

The famed lensman has jet-setted all over the world, shooting more than his fair share of modern-day royalty and artists, many of whom, including Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dalí, Richard Lindner, Terry Southern and Truman Capote, he has counted as close friends. He’s also captured unforgettable images of rock stars, supermodels and the Studio 54 crowd—subjects such as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Warhol, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Iman and Helena Christensen, among others. The Montauk resident has also taken countless captivating photos of the breathtaking landscape of the East End.

But it’s his photos of a rapidly disappearing way of life in Africa—from the decline and annihilation of the big game (elephants, rhinos, crocodiles and such) that once roamed the land freely, to the lost mores of indigenous tribes, and the staggering effects of rapidly growing overpopulation, including the denuding of what was, until recent years, the last great unspoiled wilderness—that truly define Mr. Beard’s considerable body of work.

The arresting images that he’s taken, specifically in Africa, are not just catalogued moments in time, they are a deeply personal punch in the gut, meant to evoke intense visceral reactions and to compel action.

[caption id="attachment_52209" align="alignright" width="498"] Peter Beard "I'll Write Whenever I Can"
Gelatin silver print with gelatin silver collage, animal blood,
and rag.[/caption]

Take for instance one of his most famous pictures, the self portrait “I’ll Write Whenever I Can,” a gelatin silver print taken in 1965 in Africa, which shows him writing in his diary while his lower half looks as if it’s being consumed by a crocodile. The striking image is made all the more impactful by his later layering of gelatin silver collage of photographs, animal blood and rag. Or his “Jerry Hall and Elephant Skull”—a gelatin silver print shot in 1976 and reimagined in 2012 with digital print, paper ephemera, found object collage, watercolor, gouache and colored inks—that depicts the leggy model clad in a swimsuit and cozying up to an elephant skull.

Both of those images are included in Guild Hall’s “Peter Beard: Last Word From Paradise” retrospective of his prodigious body of work. Opening on Saturday, June 18, and hanging through July 31, it’s the artist’s first American museum solo exhibition in 15 years and features more than 50 multi-layered collages, drawings, photographs and diaries—spanning five decades from the 1960s to present-day—some on public view for the first time ever.

The show is a comprehensive compilation of Mr. Beard’s artwork from his two homelands, the End and the Dark Continent.

From the beginning, Museum Director and Chief Curator Christina Mossaides Strassfield reports that she wanted to showcase the two main bodies of Mr. Beard’s work, Montauk and Africa, in the exhibit. She also wanted to feature how his creative output—which includes photographs, diaries, books, paintings and even his relationships with other artists—have contributed to the universal lexicons of art and environmental advocacy.

In order to best visually represent the complex dimensions of this lifetime of considerable output, Ms. Strassfield made the decision to divide the massive show into two main sections, which are installed in separate galleries.

“We wanted to present Peter Beard’s body of work through a different lens, by exploring the artist’s visions of Kenya and Montauk as encampments/refuges where his art and life converge,” she says. “Clearly as an artist, his body of work is phenomenal. And he’s lived a really full life, which absolutely shows in his art.”

[caption id="attachment_52210" align="alignnone" width="800"] Peter Beard. "Time waits for no one...(Mick Jagger and Keith Richards),"
Gelatin silver print with archival digital print collage, paper ephemera, ink.[/caption]

Mr. Beard’s personal story has been extraordinary, to say the least. Born into wealth and privilege (he’s the grandson of Pierre Lorillard, who established Tuxedo Park, and great grandson of James Jerome Hill, who founded the Great Northern Railway), his universe has always been one of uncommon distinction.

As a young man, he attended well-heeled schools in America and abroad before enrolling at Yale. He also travelled with Michael Rockefeller—who disappeared and is presumed to have died at the hands of cannibals during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern Netherlands, New Guinea—though was not on that particular fateful trip. Mr. Beard has, however, survived a near fatal elephant attack, which left him with considerable injuries to his pelvis and hips, and a gaping hole in his leg.

He’s also collaborated over the years with a number of legendary artists, including Warhol, Bacon, Capote, Dalí and Andrew Wyeth. And on the personal front, the dashing photographer’s relationships have been tabloid fodder for decades, having dated Lee Radziwill and married supermodel Cheryl Tiegs. For the past 30 years, Mr. Beard has been wed to wife Nejma Khanum, with whom he has a daughter, Zara, who is a frequent subject and muse for his work.

Though he’s had too many incredible experiences to count, the artist, adventurer and environmental advocate eschews being categorized or pinned down.

“I don’t apply labels to myself but if I did, I’d have to say something like I’m a somewhat interested observer,” he says.

[caption id="attachment_52208" align="alignright" width="522"] Peter Beard, Andy Warhol and his skull at Church Estate in Montauk,
"Land's End." Gelatin silver print with gelatin silver print and toned gelatin
silver print collage, found objects, ink.[/caption]

It’s not surprising, however, that the photographer’s travels and travails in Africa have been the “most significant and most meaningful” to Mr. Beard, he says. He’s been smitten with the place since his first expedition, a life-changing trip at the age of 17 when he traveled to Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, Zululand with Charles Darwin’s grandson, Quentin George Keynes, to document the lives of white and black rhinos. His love affair has continued since, from a trip back in his early 20s to photograph Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, whose elephants and rhinos were on the verge of a population die-off due to starvation and other stress- and density-related diseases, to meeting and building a close friendship with “Out of Africa” writer Karen Blixen, whose property is next to his near the Ngong Hills of southern Kenya.

In addition to being his love, Africa looks to be Beard’s true artistic legacy. Having witnessed the near destruction of his beloved adopted home, and decimation of elephant and black rhino populations (more than 35,000 elephants and 5,000 black rhinos during a two-year period in the early 1960s, which is more than survive today), the native New Yorker’s dramatic and often graphic imagery is representative of the perilous effects of overconsumption. And with clear parallels to modern diminution of resources here East End, the work is beautiful, insightful, macabre and most definitely cautionary.

“There’s a similarity between humans and elephants in that we’re both stepping into the graveyard. Humans and elephants have eaten their habitat,” he says. “Africa and the East End of Long Island are exactly the same in that the populations of both are unmanaged and out of control. It’s leading up to the end game.”

“Peter Beard: The End of Paradise” with a reception on Saturday, June 18, from 4 to 6 p.m. On Sunday, July 17, a gallery talk is planned with Museum Director/Exhibition Curator Christina Strassfield at 2 p.m. The show hangs through July 31. For additional information, visit www.guildhall.org.