"Big Daddy"

The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) produces solitary males at maturity, sometimes called 'big tuskers' — patriarchs with prodigious tusks that traverse the savannah alone, joining herds only occasionally.

The composition says everything about the hierarchy: the old male in the foreground occupies two-thirds of the painting, while the herd — females, juveniles, calves — keeps its distance beneath the acacia. The watercolour works at two scales: the detail of the cracked skin and the close-up gaze, against the blue, distant silhouettes of the group behind. Alone, but not isolated.