Lioness and Birds - From The End of The Game Series | 1995, original Peter Beard photomontage
'No-one dreamed that the game could ever be depleted by a handful of immigrants with maps and gunpowder. And yet, within a matter of years, this paradise would become a part of the modern world, a battlefield desert littered with the carcasses beyond number. As Fitzgerald wrote of another paradise: ‘For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath, in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.’ From The End of The Game Peter Beard Box 47616 Nairobi' (text from the artwork)
Called an 'Odysseus with a camera', Peter Beard is one of the most sought after names in contemporary photography and art.
This photomontage from The End of The Game Series combines two original Peter Beard photographs, taken in Kenya in the sixties, with watercolour, gouache and text. This is the first time this important work has been offered on the market. It was acquired directly from Peter Beard's studio in the early 2000s and has since been held in private collection.
Peter Beard's The End of The Game focused on the destruction of big game hunting and railway expansion of early-twentieth-century Kenya and the series serves as a testament to not only Beard's trailblazing conservation efforts but his brilliant eye. Works from The End of The Game are the most sought after and a collector could ask for no better with this unique Peter Beard on offer.
It is safe to say that there is no other Beard quite like this. An amazing example of his brilliantly idiosyncratic style.
Further pictures and information can be supplied on request.
Provenance: Bought directly from Peter Beard's studio and held in private collection since. This is the first time this has been offered on the market.
Sheet size: 62cm x 23 cm
Date work was executed: 29/06/1995 (written on the verso of the work)
Condition: Fine. The artwork is in exemplary condition.
Literature used when cataloguing: Peter Beard, The End of the Game: Last Word from Paradise (San Francisco, 1988).