Peter Beard : Collector's Edition, No. 1-125, Photo Fayel Tall (Collection a)

The most poignant are the ones of decomposing elephants where, over time, as they disintegrate, the bones form magnificent sculpture - sculpture which is not just abstract form but has all the memory traces of life, despair and futility. - Francis Bacon on Peter Beard's photographs. Photographer, collector, diarist, and writer of books Peter Beard has fashioned his life into a work of art; the illustrated diaries he kept from a young age evolved into a serious career as an artist and earned him a central position in the international art world.

He was painted by Francis Bacon, painted on by Salvador Dali, and made diaries with Andy Warhol; he toured with Truman Capote and the Rolling Stones, created books with Jacqueline Onassis and Mick Jagger - all of whom are brought to life, literally and figuratively, in his work.

As a fashion photographer, he took "Vogue" stars like Veruschka to Africa and brought new ones - most notably Iman - back to the U.S. with him. His love affair with natural history and wildlife, which informs most of his work, began when he was a teenager. He had read the books of Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) and after spending time in Kenya and befriending the author, bought a piece of land near hers.

It was the early 1960s and the big game hunters led safaris, with all the colonial elements Beard had read about in "Out of Africa" characterizing the open life and landscape, but the times were a-changing.

Beard witnessed the dawn of Kenya's population explosion, challenged finite resources, and stressed animal populations - including the starving elephants of Tsavo, dying by the tens of thousands in a wasteland of eaten trees.

So he documented what he saw - with diaries, photographs, and collages.

He went against the wind in publishing unique and sometimes shocking books of these unsentimental observations.

The corpses were laid bare; the facts were carefully written down sometimes in type, often by hand, occasionally with blood.

Spilling out over the pages of this massive tome, Peter Beard's collages are reproduced as a group for the first time at the size they have always meant to be seen, many of them as foldouts. Hundreds of smaller-scale works and diaries fill the remaining spreads - magnified to show every detail, from Beard's meticulous handwriting and old-master-inspired drawings to stones and bones and bits of animals pasted to the page.

Available in both Art and Collector's editions, this opulent and beautifully crafted limited edition - complete with wooden stand - is a work of art in itself.