Many of you may have ‘herd’ 🙂 about the Elephant parade that happened in London in June and July this year…
Above: elephants painted by Peter Smith (left) and John Wilson (right)
The Elephant Parade was the largest outdoor art exhibition ever staged in the UK, with 258 life sized baby elephant sculptures, set in locations all over London’s city centre. They were thought up and created for the leading wild elephant charity called ‘Elephant Family’ www.elephantfamily.org The interesting thing is that each elephant is a unique piece of art, hand painted by renowned artists and designers. The Parade ran for around two months; from May to July 2010. The elephants were placed in streets, parks and squares right across Central London at some of London’s leading landmarks.
Above: elephants painted by Alexander Millar (left) and Jeff Rowland (right)
With an estimated audience of 25 million (you cannot count every person in London who has viewed them can you?!), the campaign aimed to raise over £1 million for the endangered Asian elephant. It was a fresh and unique fundraising and awareness campaign that everyone could enjoy. Elephant Parade’s mission is to become the world’s largest financial support organisation for elephants, while attempting to save the Asian elephant from extinction in the wild.
Above: elephants painted by Paul Kenton (left) and Louise Dear (right)
Some of the UK’s finest artists and designers were sponsoring and painting an elephant including the previously blogged about: Alexander Millar, Jack Vettriano, Jeff Rowland John Wilson, Louise Dear, Paul Kenton & Peter Smith!…Many of these are artists licensed exclusively to Washington Green fine art publishers, so big thank you to them for allowing them to help out!
After going on display in various locations all over London, a select number of elephants were then auctioned off by Sotheby’s, whilst the remainder were auctioned online.
thank you
Vicki
Useful Links
Elephant Parade Main site: www.elephantparadelondon.org
Elephant Family Charity Main Site: www.elephantfamily.org
Donate to Elephant Family: www.justgiving.com/elephantfamily/donate