Peter Beard

Peter Hill Beard (born January 22, 1938) was an American artist whose career spanned photography, diary‑keeping, writing, and collage. Raised in New York City, Alabama, and Long Island, he began recording his life in journals at the age of twelve and took his first photographs on a transformative African expedition with explorer Quentin Keynes. After switching from pre‑medical studies to art history at Yale, where he was inducted into the secret society Scroll and Key and mentored by Josef Albers, Beard graduated in 1961 and returned to Kenya, working in Tsavo National Park and documenting the tragic loss of 35,000 elephants – material that became his seminal book The End of the Game. Over the next six decades, his unique works combined vivid wildlife photography with found objects, newspaper clippings, dried foliage, and even animal or his own blood, creating richly textured journals that were both visual art and personal testament. His photographs of African landscapes and animals were exhibited internationally, from the Blum Helman Gallery in New York (1975) to the International Center of Photography (1977) and the Centre national de la photographie in Paris (1997), and are held in private collections worldwide. Beard collaborated with cultural icons such as Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Salvador Dalí, and his social circle included Lee Radziwill, Barbara Allen, and model Cheryl Tiegs, whom he married briefly. He survived a near‑fatal elephant injury in 1996, continued to create until his death in 2020, and left a legacy preserved by the Peter Beard Studio and Archive.

Beyond his visual oeuvre, Beard authored several books, most notably Zara’s Tales (2004), a whimsical adventure written for his daughter Zara, and contributed to numerous catalogues and collaborative projects. His life was marked by wanderlust, a deep affection for the African continent, and an unwavering commitment to documenting the fragile beauty of nature through an ever‑evolving, intimate medium. Even after his passing, his work continues to inspire conservationists, artists, and readers who are drawn to the raw honesty and poetic depth of his diaries.