Peter Beard: Fifty Years of Portraits
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.--Amra Brooks