1st edition 1965 Peter Beard 'End of the Game' Viking Press

Name: 1st edition 1965 Peter Beard 'End of the Game' Viking Press
Brand: Peter Beard
Price: 800 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

“The deeper the white man went into Africa, the faster the life flowed out of it, off the plains and out of the bush…vanishing in acres of trophies and hides and carcasses” proclaimed renowned photographer and artist Peter Beard in his 1965 seminal publication The End Game, a tome highlighting the atrocities of man made destruction done to Africa’s wildlife in the National Parks of Kenya’s Tsavo lowlands and Uganda. An incredible 1st edition issue of "End of the Game" by artist and photographer, Peter Beard. Published by Viking Press in 1965. This is rare opportunity to own the original. The seminal work by Beard. This book is incredibly special and documents an incredibly important period of wildlife politics in Africa that Peter documented first hand. Exhibiting a powerful and poignant testimony to the past and present, Beard’s photo collage style works are juxtaposed to great effect by historical photographs of, and writings from, the enterprisers, explorers, missionaries, and big-game hunters whose quest for adventure and “progress” were to change the face of a continent and leave an irreversible legacy. These images produce a multilayered and intensely personal account, exhibiting the environmental crises of overpopulation and starvation of tens of thousands of elephants, rhinos, and hippos that Beard experienced in the 1960s and ’70s. The devastating poaching incidents in Africa are echoed in End of the Game’s haunting images and text that fill its pages, which chronicle the same ruthless fate these endangered elephants were subject to over half a century ago as they are today. Many know him as an artist and as a painter but Beard's documentation of what was truly happening in Tsavo National Park is a story everyone should know. This is the OG conversation starter coffee book table work.

Creator:

Peter Beard (Author)

Dimensions:

Height: 11.5 in (29.21 cm)Width: 8.4 in (21.34 cm)Depth: 1.6 in (4.07 cm)

Materials and Techniques:

Acrylic,Paper

Place of Origin:

United States

Period:

1960-1969

Date of Manufacture:

1965

Condition:

Minor losses. Minor fading. Front Page missing piece as you can see in images. Makes for unique and symbolic representation of the book.

Seller Location:

Vancouver, CA

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU9387238023232

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Shop All Peter Beard

Peter Beard

Reckless, uninhibited and brazen, photographer Peter Beard was, as The Washington Post put it, “as wild as the animals he photographed.” Beard produced some of the most beautiful images of wildlife ever captured on film.

Beard was born in 1938 in New York City. His great-grandfather was James J. Hill, founder of the Great Northern Railway. As a child, he spent his summers at his grandmother’s Tuxedo Park estate, where she gave him his first camera, a Voightländer. He used it to take pictures to accompany his diaries; Beard was a keen diarist throughout his life, amassing more than 100 volumes. At the age of 17, he took a life-changing trip to Africa with Quentin Keynes, Charles Darwin’s great-grandson, using his Voightländer to photograph wildlife.

After attending prestigious private schools such as Buckley and Pomfret, Beard entered Yale University in 1957 as a pre-med student. However, he soon turned his attention toward art, studying under architectural historian Vincent Scully, German artist Josef Albers and painter Richard Lindner. He graduated in 1961 with a degree in art history.

In the 1960s, Beard returned to Africa, where he met Out of Africa author Karen Blixen. Enamored by the continent’s natural beauty, he purchased Hog Ranch near Blixen’s coffee plantation in Kenya. While there, he received a special dispensation from President Uhuru Kenyatta to film, photograph and document the flora and wildlife at Tsavo National Park. This led to The End of the Game, published in 1965, which documented the demise of more than 35,000 starving elephants and 5,000 black rhinos.

Beard became renowned for his black-and-white and color photography, figurative photos and landscapes. He exhibited around the world, including at New York’s Blum Helman Gallery in 1975, the International Center of Photography in Manhattan in 1977, the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris in 1996 and Guild Hall in East Hampton in 2016.

Beard died in 2020 at the age of 82. His works remain in demand with collectors.

On 1stDibs, find original Peter Beard photography, mixed media work and prints.