The painting depicts the true story of Mary the Elephant being hanged, in the railroad boom town of Erwin Tennessee in 1916. She had killed a man, for preventing her from eating an old watermelon rind, her trunk had found on the ground - and the crowd wanted her dead. She was shot multiple times, but did not die. Mary was billed, as the largest elephant on earth, three inches bigger than Jumbo. She was a talented elephant, the big star of a dog and pony show called The Sparks Family Circus. She could play 25 different tunes on musical horns, she could play baseball, her 400 batting average astonished New Yorkers. Mary didn't perform for the matinee performance the day she died. She was chained outside the circus tent, and folks say she spent the entire performance swaying nervously. The crowd's dissatisfaction with her absence was mollified by the announcement that Mary would be hung in the Clinchfield Railyards later in the afternoon – with no additional charge for admission. They chained her to the railway tracks, and then hung her with a chain, and a crane big enough to lift her. They forgot they chained her leg, and when she was lifted into the air, the chain broke, and Mary fell down, and sat like a jack rabbit on the tracks, with her hip broken. The crowd said they could hear the tendons break. She was rehung and died after a few minutes. Mary refused to be led to the railroad tracks without the other four elephants in her troop, she was their leader, she would not leave them behind, so they too witnessed the hanging. This painting is from a series about the tragedy of elephants used as entertainment attractions in circus's and zoos, up to the present day.
-Sue Coe

Winner of cash prize awarded at the 184th Annual: An Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, National Academy members exhibition, National Academy, New York, Apr 16–Jun 10, 2009