The Elephant Skull and Stonehenge

While working on my first publication, The Enigma of Stonehenge, I had the great pleasure to become acquainted with Henry Moore, as he had created a suite of lithographs of Stonehenge. He showed me his studio which had shelves filled with animal bones. He used them as inspirations for his sculpture. I told him that I had done a suite of photos of a walrus skull and he invited me to return and photograph an incredible elephant skull; a gift from Julian Huxley. I returned the following year and created a suite of split-selenium-toned images of the Elephant Skull. Subsequently, a series of traveling exhibits of Henry Moore’s’ suites of the Elephant Skull and Stonehenge and my photographs of the same subjects were arranged. The catalogue shown herewith was from the exhibit, which took place at Northern Illinois University. Many famous photographers such as Irving Penn have subsequently become fascinated with the subject of animal skulls. To my knowledge, my exploration in the late 1970’s was the first.

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