Peter Beard

Photographer, writer, diarist, anthropologist, historian and socialite.

A man of extremes, excesses, and possible contradictions, Beard has led the kind of wild, rugged life fictionalised by writers such as Hemingway. During the last thirty years at his home in Kenya, he has had one clear obsession: chronicling the devastation of nature in East Africa.

Trips to Africa in 1955 and 1960 piqued his interests and after graduating from Yale, he returned in 1961 to Kenya. After working several years at Kenya’s Tsavo National Park – where he documented over-population, over- grazing, and a massive die-off of over 35,000 elephants – Peter published his first book in 1965, 'The End of the Game'.

During the seventies, he befriended and collaborated with many of the era's greatest artists including Andy Warhol, Andrew Wyeth, Terry Southern, Truman Capote, and Francis Bacon. He brought Iman, then completely unknown, to the United States and launching her career as a model and eventual wife to David Bowie.

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