
William Eggleston
Memphis, Tennessee
Plate 6 from Graceland (Washington, D. C., 1984, an edition of 31), numbered '26' in orange …

Native Southerner William Eggleston's photographs monumentalize everyday subject matter, such as motel rooms and storefronts, in eccentric, refined compositions. Each detail is important, potentially carrying beauty and mystery. The main catalyst for New American Color Photography, Eggleston is largely credited with legitimizing color photography (especially with the dye transfer process) as a fine art form. Teaching himself from books of prints by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, he began photographing his environment in the 1950s but turned to color, then used largely only commercially, in the late 1960s. Eggleston's 1976 "Color Photographs" show at the Museum of Modern Art was groundbreaking for its striking, saturated color but also for his observational style, often deemed "democratic."

Plate 6 from Graceland (Washington, D. C., 1984, an edition of 31), numbered '26' in orange crayon in the margin, signed in ink and with the date and edition stamps on the reverse, framed, 1983, printed in 1984, no. 8 in an edition of 31.

Native Southerner William Eggleston's photographs monumentalize everyday subject matter, such as motel rooms and storefronts, in eccentric, refined compositions. Each detail is important, potentially carrying beauty and mystery. The main catalyst for New American Color Photography, Eggleston is largely credited with legitimizing color photography (especially with the dye transfer process) as a fine art form. Teaching himself from books of prints by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, he began photographing his environment in the 1950s but turned to color, then used largely only commercially, in the late 1960s. Eggleston's 1976 "Color Photographs" show at the Museum of Modern Art was groundbreaking for its striking, saturated color but also for his observational style, often deemed "democratic."