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Memphis

1970
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
William Eggleston’s 1976 show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the landmark book that accompanied it, William Eggleston’s Guide, almost single-handedly ushered color photography into the fine-art pantheon. Before then, most old-guard photographers and the art museums that supported and collected their work considered color too cliché, too commercial, or both. Memphis is one of the many seemingly casual, lush color views Eggleston made of the suburban built environment near his Tennessee home. Viewed from a child’s vantage point, a well-loved, rusty tricycle becomes a mint-condition Mustang with mag wheels that is styled up, fast, and liberating.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Memphis
  • Artist: William Eggleston (American, born Memphis, Tennessee, 1939)
  • Date: 1970
  • Medium: Dye transfer print
  • Dimensions: Image: 11 7/8 × 17 3/8 in. (30.2 × 44.1 cm)
    Framed: 18 1/2 × 24 in. (47 × 61 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs