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Quartered Rocky Mountain Elk, Milky Creek, White Cloud Mountains, Idaho
image overall
image overall

Quartered Rocky Mountain Elk, Milky Creek, White Cloud Mountains, Idaho

Series TitleRiver of No Return
Artist Laura McPhee (American, born 1958)
Date2004
MediumChromogenic print
DimensionsImage and sheet (sight): 47 3/8 × 60 3/8 inches (120.33 × 153.35 cm)
Framed: 50 1/4 × 63 1/4 × 2 inches (127.64 × 160.66 × 5.08 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2013.20.3
SignedSigned in black ink, on gallery label below edition, "Laura McPhee"
Inscribednone
Markingsnone
Edition/State/Proofed. 4/5
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • L11
Collections
DescriptionImage of a dismembered elk on snow covered ground; mountains in background.Gallery Label

Laura McPhee came to appreciate the importance of hunting in the lives of people she met in the Sawtooth Valley. This visceral image depicts the quartered, blood-red meat of a slaughtered elk after a hunter finished preparing the animal to take home as food.

McPhee recalls: “I had never seen an animal being skinned and cleaned like that before, and I found it completely fascinating and very beautiful. The hunter who did all this work did it all with this very small knife, which, if you look closely, is visible sticking out of the tree trunk in the center of the image.”

Copyright© Laura McPhee
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