At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston

William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939). Untitled (Louisiana), 1980, printed 1999. Dye-transfer print. 11 7/8 x 17 13/16 in. (30.2 x 45.3 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and Elizabeth S. and Robert J. Fisher Gift, 2012 (2012.302). © Eggleston Artistic Trust

The exhibition is made possible in part by Renée Belfer.

Works On View

Untitled
William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939)
Date: 1974
Accession Number: 2012.280.1
Untitled
William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939)
Date: 1974
Accession Number: 2012.280.2
Untitled
William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939)
Date: 1974
Accession Number: 2012.280.3
Untitled
William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939)
Date: 1974
Accession Number: 2012.280.4
Untitled
William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939)
Date: 1974
Accession Number: 2012.280.5
Untitled
William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939)
Date: 1974
Accession Number: 2012.280.6

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At War with the Obvious

Photographs by William Eggleston

February 26–July 28, 2013

Gallery 852

William Eggleston (American, born 1939) emerged in the early 1960s as a pioneer of modern color photography. Now, fifty years later, he is its most prolific and influential exemplar. Through a profound appreciation of the American vernacular (especially near his home in the Mississippi Delta) and confidence in the dye transfer printmaking process to reveal the region's characteristic qualities of light and saturated chromatics, Eggleston almost single-handedly validated color photography as a legitimate artistic medium. This exhibition celebrates the artist's iconic photographs of commonplace subjects that have become touchstones for generations of artists, musicians, and filmmakers from Nan Goldin to David Byrne, the Coen Brothers, and David Lynch.