Long known for a political art that takes no prisoners, Sue Coe, who first gained recognition for her illustrations, has taken the plight of animals as her signature subject -- in particular, the horrors that industrial farming unleashes on animals that end up on our dinner plates. In Sheep of Fools, Coe exposed the inhumane conditions of the sheep industry through a muckraking black-and-white graphic style that has been compared to that of the German Expressionist artist and printmaker Kathe Kollwitz.

For her most recent work, Elephants We Must Never Forget, on display through Saturday at Galerie St. Etienne, Coe presents the bleak story of circus elephants, which were first brought to the United States around 1815. These animals quickly became the mainstay of the big top because of their huge size and their novelty; at the time, only the wealthy and well-traveled had ever witnessed these creatures.

Left: Bridgeport Fire, 2008. Right: Death of Jumbo (Small), 2008. Courtesy of Galerie St. Etienne.

Because only baby elephants were small and docile enough to be transported by ship, the cruelty inflicted on these animals began with the slaughter of their mothers in the wild. Coe has studied the history of the American circus and puts the inhumane treatment of elephants into the context of a world largely inhabited by marginalized people who also suffered at the hands of ignorant impresarios. In one horrific instance at Coney Island, an elephant named Topsy, tormented by its alcoholic handler, finally takes revenge and tramples the man to death. But afterwards, the elephant is electrocuted before a paying crowd by Thomas Edison, who subsequently released a film of the event as part of his promotional campaign for electricity.

The fourteen paintings, along with a selection of drawings and prints, continue Coe's exploration of post-colonial conditions that persist today, and reveal mankind's inhumanity as a seemingly unceasing byproduct of greed.

Elephants We Must Never Forget, paintings, prints and drawings by Sue Coe, continues through Saturday, December 20, at Galerie St. Etienne, 24 West 57th Street, NYC. 212.245.6734.