Peter Beard: Fifty Years of Portraits.

BEARD, Peter.

$2,500.00

Item Number: 146133

Sante Fe, NM: Arena Editions, 1999.

First edition of this classic monograph. Quarto, original leatherette cover. illustrated throughout. Elaborately signed and inscribed by Peter Beard in the year of publication, with his left hand imprint added. In fine condition, bookplate opposite the inscription. Preface by Peter T. Tunney and with an introduction by David Fahey. Essay by Anthony Haden-Guest.

In this book cataloguing 50 years of Peter Beard's photography, essayist Peter Tunney offers an interesting perspective on Beard's work: "Above all, Peter Beard is a collector, the camera only one method to his madness, a mere tool for accumulating his relished subject matter, the evidence of a life lived, all stuffed into a diary, or any book for that matter. Peter once remarked to me, 'I never save a book unless I have something glued in it.'" Beard's photos are collages of lists, of reference points; when he shows in a gallery, he insists that a mixed tape of music is played to amplify and add a layer of sound to his pictures. The texture in his photo collages is rich, and the layers are thick. The elements he employs create a whole vision of his work: Africa, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, the Kennedys, elephants, Montauk, Mick Jagger, blood, crocodiles, things cut out of their context and put in new ones--the picture begins to form. Fifty years' worth of work is collected in this book, expressed in faces readers may recognize and some they won't; his adventures; and his years at Hog Ranch in Africa. Somehow these diverse points of reference come together in their differences and illustrate completely Peter Beard's fascinating work and life.