Peter Beard

American, 1938-2020. Peter Beard was a famous photographer well-known for his documentary picture of Africa organized in photo collages. These unique collages are a combination of drawing, text, and paintings. The artist was also a writer and diarist who resided and worked in Kenya, Montauk, and New York. His photographs mainly feature African animals. Peter Beard's journals featuring images of Africa are shown at exhibitions and widely published after the 1960s. Peter Beard was a part-activist and part-documentarian whose work often captured the plight of regions submitting to industrialization.

Peter Beard was born on January 22, 1938, in NY. The artist started maintaining diaries and taking photographs since he was 12. He studied art history at the Yale University with famous abstract artist Josef Albers. He later moved to Arica in the 1960s and started cataloging the demise of rhinoceroses and elephants from Kenya’s Tsavo National Park. Peter Beard's photography catalogs include newspaper clippings, insects, dried leaves, transcribed telephone messages, old sepia-toned photos, marginalia in Indian ink, quotes, female photographs, and found objects combined with collages and original drawings. Few of his works also include animal blood and his own blood (in minimal quantities), a medium Beard often preferred. Peter Beard was also a photographer for the Elle and Vogue magazines. Throughout his career, Beard collaborated with artists like Richard Lindner, Francis Bacon, and Andy Warhol.

The artist died at the age of 82 on April 19, 2020. Peter Beard's photography has been shown at monumental museum exhibitions held at the Centre National de la photographie, Paris, and the International Center of Photography, New York, in 1977. His works were also part of gallery exhibitions in London, Berlin, Madrid, Toronto, Tokyo, Vienna, and Milan. Peter Beard's photography is also a part of worldwide private collections. Peter Beard's photography for sale is available at many online auctions. Collectors can find Peter Beard's photography for sale online on leading auction platforms.