Peter Beard's photographs of fashion models, African animals, and the journals that often integrate his photographs have been widely shown and published since the 1970s. His grandmother, Ruth (Hill) Beard, married, as her second husband, Pierre Lorillard IV, who was a...
[more]Peter Beard's photographs of fashion models, African animals, and the journals that often integrate his photographs have been widely shown and published since the 1970s. His grandmother, Ruth (Hill) Beard, married, as her second husband, Pierre Lorillard IV, who was a tobacco magnate and is credited with helping to popularize the tuxedo. A great-grandfather, James Jerome Hill, was founder of the Great Northern Railroad in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Railroads, in part, provided the infrastructure for colonization both in the United States and Africa, promoting expansion into undeveloped frontiers. J. J. Hill made his fortune in the railroad business, leaving as legacy both money, colonialism and art to his great-grandson Peter. While not rejecting money from this trust, Beard laments the expansion of Western capitalism into Africa. James J. Hill was a great patron of the arts and all of his heirs were exposed to and owned great collections, thus having a great impact on Peter's interest in the arts and beauty.
Due to this wealth, Beard has lived a jet-setting lifestyle and is famous not only for his photographs of endangered African elephants but also of supermodels and rock stars like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Iman, Veruschka (Countess Vera von Lehndorff, an important artist in her own right), and Beard's first wife Minnie Cushing (Iman and Minnie Cushing he claims to have "discovered"). Beard introduced NYC's famous $2000/hr hooker "Natalia" Natalie McLennan to his friend "King of all Pimps" Jason Itzler at NY Confidential the famous escort agency that discovered Ashley Alexandra Dupré. Jason says, “When Natalia came over with Peter, I said, Wow, she’s so hot. She has one of the all-time great tushes." New York Magazine. He was also married to the model Cheryl Tiegs. Beard is well known for his handsome looks, a trait that reaches far branches of his family.
Beard's milieu consisted of Andy Warhol, the sister of Jackie Onassis, Lee Radziwill, Truman Capote, and Bianca Jagger who all lived and rented houses in Montauk and Manhattan, NY in the 1970s and 1980s. Beard further had a close relationship with the late painter, Francis Bacon. He photographed Bacon and was also the model for several of Bacon's paintings. Beard was one of the hangers-on to the infamous Rolling Stones 1972 tour of America.
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