Peter Beard

Unique diptyque. Deux tirages chromogéniques, chacun monté sur lin. Un signé, titré, daté et annoté à l'encre et chacun avec des traces de sang et de multiples collages sur les images. Encadrés.

Paris, Centre National de la Photographie, Carnets Africains, 1996/97

Carnets Africains, Centre Nationale de la Photographie, Paris 1996;
Peter Beard, Beyond the End of the World, New York, 1998, n. p.;
Nejma Beard et David Fahey, Peter Beard, Cologne, 2008, ill. pl. 506 et p. 137.

Only one of the images of this diptychs is signed. Because of its size and the extensive number of collaged elements, not only two-dimensional, but three-dimensional as well, including snakeskin, rocks, bullets, and even a computer keyboard, these prints have not been removed from their frames. They appear to be in generally excellent condition. As is typical of prints by Peter Beard, the paper is somewhat wavy because it is floating within the frame. There is an abundance of bloodwork. The edges of the paper are somewhat rubbed, and there is a small tape remnant at the upper left edge.
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This large-scale and heavily-collaged diptych was a key piece in Peter Beard's one-man exhibition at the Centre Nationale de la Photographie in Paris, from November 1996 through January 1997.  Titled Carnets Africains, the show was curated by the director of the Centre, legendary photography book designer and publisher Robert Delpire.  Diary Page Diptych:  October 14 (Ele Embryo, MP 1) / March (Bacon and E. Taylor, MP 2) was initially created over five sleepless nights in early 1996 at The Time Is Always Now Gallery in New York's SoHo, with additional embellishment in the months leading up to the exhibition.  It is a bravura collage effort, even for a master such as Beard.  In it, the photographer has adventurously combined his manipulated photographs with blood—his own and that from a slaughterhouse—and objects as disparate as computer chips and keyboard, cigarette and candy packaging, a bullet casing, toy crocodile, skate egg sacks, and snakeskin, among many others.

This diptych is based on two of his diary pages.  Each features photographs of portraits of Beard by the artist Francis Bacon, a friend since 1965 when they met at the Clermont Club in London for the launch of Beard's book, The End of the Game.  One panel features the photograph of an elephant embryo, a recurring theme in his work since the 1960s, and the other, a photograph of actress Elizabeth Taylor.

It has been the photographer's habit since childhood to keep personal diaries.  These complex, multi-layered journals have traced the histories of his many relationships; his life in Africa; the New York social and art scene; fashion; Hollywood; and the Kennedy family.  They are densely and lavishly packed with images of the rich, famous, and beautiful, ink drawings and doodles, and an endless variety of oddments from his life, including an array of documents, telephone messages, and all manner of found objects.

Diary Page Diptych was made during the months before Beard was trampled and nearly killed by an elephant, and he has said that this work perfectly summarized his life at that time, focusing on the stresses of modern life—political, cultural, technological, environmental—and the transience of beauty.