Lot 30 R

Following business studies and a career in finance in London and New York, the native Scot started a second career as a photographer as an inner vocation. He specialised in wild animals and succeeded in capturing them up close in their natural habitat with the help of specially prepared, remote-controlled cameras. His photographs are characterised by great empathy, they show the animals less as endangered species but rather in their animal uniqueness and beauty.
For the impressive shot of the white lion, which approaches the observer powerfully and supplely with a focused gaze and the determination of the predatory cat, Yarrow visited the ‘Kingdom of the White Lion Park’ of the zoologist and animal rights activist Kevin Richardson in the province of Gauteng in South Africa. Here, he learnt the story of the eponymous animal, a predecessor of the white lion shown here, which plays a role in this photograph: Thor was struck by lightning and died during a thunderstorm on 5th December 2013 – on the same day as Nelson Mandela, who was also called the ‘Lion of Africa’ in South Africa. For Kevin Richardson, who had developed a strong attachment to this particular animal, the coincidence of the two events was not simply a coincidence, but proof of the magical connection between things. For the internationally renowned photographer Yarrow also, the special relationships between humans and animals are elementary, and the stories that can be told about them are always a core component of his works. (cf. David Yarrow, loc.cit., p. 359)