The Game Ends Again

Ben Kaplan, National Post
Published: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Peter Beard was stomped by an elephant in 1996 and had his pelvis shattered in 22 pieces. Six months later, the bon vivant photographer was back in the Kenyan bush taking photographs.

Beard, who toured with the Rolling Stones in the early '70s and counted Francis Bacon, Truman Capote and Andy Warhol as friends, turns 70 this year. A perfect time for Taschen, the art-house book publisher based in SoHo, New York, to re-release his 1965 debut, The End of the Game ($39.99).

The book, a prescient photo collage of the decimation of East African wildlife, is page upon page of coiled rattlesnakes and elephant skeletons, with passages from Paradise Lost and Beard's own journals scrawled in the margins. The new introduction was written by Paul Theroux.

When asked about the state of game today, 40-plus years after he declared its end, Beard doesn't hold back: "It amounts to selfish and presumptuous, often spoiled interference from the disastrous, locust-like human population exploding all around and replacing -- if not eradicating -- most of nature."

Beard is currently finishing work on a calendar for Pirelli, and he's working with the same animal that pounced on his pelvis 12 years ago.

"This year the Pirelli Calendar has 52 pages of what you might call the elephant metaphor," explains Beard. "The entire ecology of the elephant is more similar to us [and our fate] than any other animal -- adapting to the damage we both cause."

Born and bred in New York City, but influenced by Karen Blixen and still living at least part of the year at his home outside Nairobi, Beard, through his photographs of supermodels, rock stars and wildlife, has established himself as a singular artist of the 20th century.

The End of the Game has proven to be the start of an adventurous career.