Elephant painting began at the Institute in 1998 when the conceptual art partnership of Komar & Melamid taught selected Institute elephants to paint. Elephants had already done this in over twenty zoos and circuses before K&M, but they were the first to make it prominent in the media. The animals were wielding a brush quite handsomely by the end of the first day.

Subsequently, the Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project was founded, and under it's auspices, Lampang paintings were auctioned at Christies in NY in March of 2000. Then income was US$92,000 of which $25,000 was donated to the Institute. A single female calf, Wanalee, at the time three years old, subsequently sold a single canvas for $1,000 (about 60,000 baht) in the UK. Paintings by our artists are in the collection of HM the Queen of Thailand, Princess Galyani, Queen Margarethe of Denmark, and Meg Ryan.