ELEPHANTS WE MUST NEVER FORGET: New Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Sue Coe, on view from October 14 through December 20, 2008, at the Galerie St. Etienne, is the first exhibition ever to document the plight of circus elephants: gentle yet sometimes deadly beasts who have long been exploited for their entertainment value.

Comprising 14 new oil paintings and over a dozen ancillary drawings and prints, ELEPHANTS WE MUST NEVER FORGET: New Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Sue Coe chronicles the lives and deaths of both generic and historically specific circus elephants. Highlights include a sequence of eleven works telling the story of Topsy, an elephant who was electrocuted at Coney Island as a publicity stunt on behalf of Thomas Edison’s electric company. Jumbo—whose name became a synonym for “extra large”—experienced an equally violent death (reprised in two oil paintings, a large drawing and a lithograph) and was then “resurrected” as a stuffed display, seen in the painting The Dress Rehearsal (2008). One of the most moving paintings in the exhibition is Blind Children Feel an Elephant (2008), which shows how the simple sense of touch bridges the gulf between species. ELEPHANTS WE MUST NEVER FORGET: New Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Sue Coe represents a turning point in the career of one of our foremost contemporary political artists.

Sue Coe’s approach has undergone an immense shift since 2001, when she moved from Manhattan to upstate New York. The tangible presence of nature and complex interactions with the local community have given Coe’s work a more solid basis in lived experience. A consummate draughtsman, she has for the first time felt compelled to paint, and the elephant series evidences a newly robust — more — An Elephant Never Forgets. 2007.

The paintings recreate the elephants’ world more completely than is possible with drawing, inspiring a more visceral emotional response from the viewer.

“I think it is possible that in the near future elephants can be rescued from their forced role of doing silly tricks to entertain us, or of being part of stamp-album collections in zoos. They can walk on soft grass, be with their own kind. An elephant never forgets, we just forgot that they have complex feelings of friendship, family, loyalty. They can be free of our oppression.” —Sue Coe