Jumbo
by Pennie McCracken
Title
Jumbo
Artist
Pennie McCracken
Medium
Digital Art - Paintography - Digital Mixed Media Art
Description
Jumbo the Elephant (1860 - 1885) was exported from Sudan, where he was born, to a zoo in Paris and then later in 1865 transferred to the London Zoo in England. In 1882, under great protest, he was sold to P.T. Barnum who took him back to his Circus in the USA.
Barnum exhibited Jumbo in Madison Square Gardens and made enough money in 3 weeks to recoup the £2,000 he had spent to purchase him. Barnum made £1.7M in the 31 week season due to his main attraction, this wonderful elephant.
Jumbo died in a train accident, right here in St. Thomas, Ontario where I live. In those days Barnum's circus traveled North America via train and many rail lines converged in St. Thomas. After their performance here that night, they were being led to their box car and another train came roaring down the track. Jumbo was hit and he died within minutes. Such a sad story.
Uploaded
June 13th, 2018
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Comments (7)
Pennie McCracken
Thank you very much Leanne and the John for the features, it is greatly appreciated.
LEANNE SEYMOUR
Promoting on the Semi Abstract group "Semi Abstract Animals Including Birds, Fish & All Wild Life. No Photography Only - 2 A Day." discussion thread!
John M Bailey
Congratulations on your feature in the Fine Art America Group "Images That Excite You!"
Hany J
Hi Pennie; what a GREAT image for starters; but such a sad ending to the story! Only 25 years of life when this beautiful creature could have lived a wonderful 60 years (on average). And they are such beautiful animals. BTW - did you paint this from scratch or used some reference image of Jumbo? Either way, it is such a powerful and beautiful image; VERY impressive.
Pennie McCracken replied:
Thank you Hany.....for your kind words. I didn't paint this image from scratch, I created it from one of my photographs of an African Elephant. It's not Jumbo, it is the same species as Jumbo, and it was inspired by his story. in 1985 our little city did actually create a statue of Jumbo, as a memorial :).
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