Farewell to an American original

Peter Beard is dead. He was 82. After a recent stroke he developed dementia and wandered away from his Montauk home. His body was found in the nearby woods.

Those three sentences don't convey how gorgeous, gifted and talented he was. He positively glowed. As Vanity Fair remembered him, he was "part Byron and part Tarzan."

From the Vanity Fair obit

The photo above is how he looks in my mind's eye: In a faraway place with an exotic woman.

In terms of his work, I love these two shots.

He captioned this self portrait of creativity: "I'll write whenever I can."

He had nothing to do with this book, but Edward Klein's publisher bought the rights to this photo as cover art for the biography of Peter's good friend and early supporter, Jackie. When Peter took this, she was newly Mrs. Onassis, living on Skorpios. Minimal makeup, sunburned nose, no sunglasses. He captured her contentment without artifice.

I toast you, Peter Beard!

With Little Edie Beale