William Eggleston Show

[mcfactor]

I went to Eggleston retrospective at the whitney on friday was thrilled by it. The prints were absolutely spectacular. I have always been a fan of his work and what he has done for color photography. The dye-transfer prints were simply beautiful.

The other interesting thing about this show was that it had nearly every type of print. The majority were his signature dye-transfers, but there were also c-prints, inkjet prints, lightjet prints, gelatin-silver prints, and even an iris print. As i started through the exhibit i kept thinking to myself, "how would digital prints stack up to these dye-transfers?" By the time i got through the exhibition i had my answer: very well. The exhibition demonstrated that each medium has its own strengths, although the dye-transfers did have a certain something about them. The only prints that i had a problem with were the larger-scale b&w lightjets. They were completely grain/pixel free, which was very impressive, but seemed to lack a richness that gelatin-silver prints have (although the g-s prints there were not great).

Anyway, any one in the ny area in the next few months should see the show, it does not disappoint.

[Maris Rusis]

The best picture making technology works well for William Eggleston and the results are certainly worthy of admiration but you could do the same.

Just drop your exposed film off at the same lab where Eggleston drops off his exposed film. Order the same kind of prints as Eggleston orders and pay the prices Eggleston pays. Bingo! your pictures will be as gorgeous as the ones you admire at the Whitney. And your pictures could even be more interesting because they would feature your preferred subject matter seen the way you prefer to look at it.

The Whitney exhibition demonstrates the gulf between what Eggleston does, point and click a camera, and what wonders the lab staff (the actual picture makers) conjure out of his exposed film.

[mcfactor]

That could be true for the newer digital prints. However, the dye-transfer prints were all printed by him. I also happen to like looking at his work in particular. I can understand not liking it, he has a very particular way of looking at the world, and some do cross the line into the mundane. However, he is responsible for printing the vast majority of his own work and must be respected for that. He (along with stephen shore) is also a large reason why the majority of prints in galleries are color. He helped to demonstrate that color prints can rivial b&w one in beauty and craftsmanship.

He is, in a way, (read carefully here) similar to Ansel Adams: you may not like the subject matter, but you have to admire what he did for the medium.

[QT Luong]

He (along with stephen shore) is also a large reason why the majority of prints in galleries are color. He helped to demonstrate that color prints can rivial b&w one in beauty and craftsmanship.

I don't think it was primarily beauty or craftmanship that got color into the museum, more the image content, which is consistent with the remark by Maris. However, back in the seventies, when you couldn't produce super saturated prints as easily as now, dye transfers must have contributed to the impact.

[mcfactor]

I mean, the beauty part is always up for debate, so there's no point in arguing about it. Suffice it to say i find some of eggleston's dye-transfer prints (boy in red sweater) as beautiful as any print i have seen. One reason eggleston's work made it into museums in the 70s was because his subject matter was "mundane" and the prints were beautifully crafted. Demonstrating that color prints deserve a place in museums and that there is beauty in the everyday. I dont think that he would have gotten famous if his prints were 'drugstore' prints or simply made in some average lab as Maris implies.

[C. D. Keth]

I dont think that he would have gotten famous if his prints were 'drugstore' prints or simply made in some average lab as Maris implies.

It's funny you word it that way. I found this on the Wikipedia article (I know how reliable wikipedia is, but this seems well-cited) about Eggleston:

"John Szarkowski of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) describes his first, 1969 encounter with the young Eggleston as being "absolutely out of the blue." After reviewing Eggleston's work (which he recalled as a suitcase full of "drugstore" color prints) Szarkowski prevailed upon the Photography Committee of MOMA to buy one of Eggleston's photographs."

So apparently a bunch of drugstore prints seemed important enough to somebody for them to purchase a photograph and thus help him along and preserve his work.

[mcfactor]

Ha ha, there you go. I still like his work. and i maintain that his dye-transfer prints are beautiful. but thats pretty funny.

[QT Luong]

Note also that the recently published book of Stephen Shore, "American Surfaces", comes in a Kodak wrapper, similar to the one you used to get at the drugstore.

[mcfactor]

yes, but the shore one was definitely done ironically.

[QT Luong]

From the publisher's description of American Surfaces"

"First exhibited at the cutting edge New York City Light Gallery, this visual diary of Shore's travels across the United States confounded critics. Displayed as hundreds and hundreds of color photographs, processed simply at Kodak labs in New Jersey, they bore stark contrast to the formal, black-and-white prints that were recognized as art..."

[Ron McElroy]

That could be true for the newer digital prints. However, the dye-transfer prints were all printed by him.


I don't think Bill printed the dye transfers himself, but he did "art direct" the printers on what he wanted from the images.

[paulr]

I don't think it was primarily beauty or craftmanship that got color into the museum, more the image content ...

Well, it was his use of color. "Content," sure, but simlar subject had long been seen in black and white. Eggleston and Shore were the first photographers discovered by Szarkowski who used color the way painters do, which is to say they used color relationships to build a formally coherent image the way that black and white photographers used tonal relationships.

I'm not exactly clear on why Eggleston gets full credit (and not Shore), but Szarkowski famously said he "invented" color photography. When asked to explain this he said (and I'm paraphrasing), before Eggleston came along, color in photographs had either been merely pretty, or it had been completely superfluous.

[QT Luong]

Well, it was his use of color.
[..]
I'm not exactly clear on why Eggleston gets full credit (and not Shore), but Szarkowski famously said he "invented" color photography. When asked to explain this he said (and I'm paraphrasing), before Eggleston came along, color in photographs had either been merely pretty, or it had been completely superfluous.

Can someone elaborate on what "merely pretty" means ?

For instance, are the intimate landscapes of Eliott Porter (incidentally, a true master of the dye tranfer process) "merely pretty" ?

Two things are sure fact. First the color in them is certainly not "superflous" (try to convert to B&W the cover image of "In Wilderness" and see if it still works). Second Porter did his work way before Eggleston and Shore were discovered. In fact, if I remember he had an exhibition at the very MOMA in the 40s. The originality of Eggleston and Shore was in the way they used color *to photograph vernacular America*, but in my opinion, Porter is more deserving of being called the "father of color photography".

[mcfactor]

I think what set Eggleston and Shore apart from people like Porter was the fact that they did not shoot natural landscapes. Porter's images are pretty, but they are very similar to what others had done in content. There is no denying he is a master of his craft, but his subject matter (even by the 1960's) was self-limiting in the art world.

[adrian tyler]

For instance, are the intimate landscapes of Eliott Porter (incidentally, a true master of the dye tranfer process) "merely pretty" ?

can you really see such a departure - apart from the colour - from the work pioneered by weston et. al. to the work done by porter? to my taste i think he is treating the same subject matter but in colour.

whereas the reasurgance of shores' work could be interpreted as nostalgic, eggleston is altogether "a different kettle of fish" and, if only judged by what other artists have taken from him, must be seen as a major artist.

[QT Luong]

can you really see such a departure - apart from the colour - from the work pioneered by weston et. al. to the work done by porter? to my taste i think he is treating the same subject matter but in colour.

This is right, but I feel there are many of his images (though not all of them) where the color is the most essential part of the composition, which to me means that they would not work in B&W. On the other hand, I can accept that by art criteria, all nature work is pretty, but since this word seems to be used a lot, I'd still like someone to try to define what it really means.

[mcfactor]

Aesthetically pleasing (with the implication that it lacks depth on a more profound level).

(im not saying this necessarily describes Porter's work, but that's what people mean when they say something is just "pretty").

[paulr]

It's possible that the line about Eggleston "inventing" color photography was falsely attributed to Szarkowski. I can't find any actual attribution of it. But it's become a popular line in the art world at large, maybe because Eggleston did the first color photography that curators and collectors really cared about (in the way they cared about painting, or the best black and white photography).

But Szarkowski actually mentions Porter (along with Shore, Helen Levitt, and Joel Meyerowitz),
here (http://www.egglestontrust.com/guide_intro.html), in the introduction to William Eggleston's Guide. He considers them all part of the same continuum in developing a serious vocabulary of color in photography. But if you read closely, there's the implication that what these other photographers do in their very best work, Eggleston does all the time. One evaluation that can absolutely be attributed to Szarkowski is that Eggleston's pictures (in the guide) are "perfect."

[Maris Rusis]

William Eggleston didn't invent colour photography but, to a large degree, John Szarkowski invented William Eggleston.

Imagine the challenge John Szarkowski faced when he became head of photography at MOMA in 1962. His predecessor, the grand and imperious Edward Steichen, had established photography as a major force in world sensibility via his Family of Man blockbuster to name just one initiative. Steichen's predecessor, Beaumont Newhall, had embedded photography in the on going and glorious tradition of art history via his writings, scholarship, and exhibitions.

Now Szarkowski had to make his own mark, a dramatic break with the past, and he chose to do it by lionising colour pictures. Of the bodies of work available at the time the output of William Eggleston was enticingly convenient. Eggleston was (and is) an amazingly prolific visual magpie with thousands of off-topic, off-beat, non traditional images. He also had three qualities that ensure sympathetic reception of a photographer's first exhibition at MOMA; an American photographer producing images of American subject matter for American audiences.

The rest is recent history but I think from a long perspective the William Eggleston adventure will be seen as John Szarkowski's biggest mistake.

[adrian tyler]

The rest is recent history but I think from a long perspective the William Eggleston adventure will be seen as John Szarkowski's biggest mistake.

given that the "long perspective" on the eggleston shows' legacy - photographically speaking - started in the 80's, i think that it has proved to be szarkowski's most brilliant moment of glory, to see the position of colour work in contemporary photography, just leaf through the catalogue of any important modern photography collection, not to mention cinema, tv, advertising etc...


He also had three qualities that ensure sympathetic reception of a photographer's first exhibition at MOMA; an American photographer producing images of American subject matter for American audiences.

the moma exhibition was universally panned "worst exhibition of the year" the nyt called it.

the facts speak for themselves, whether you like his work or not is another matter.

[paulr]

Adrian is right; it was a huge risk for Szarkowski at the time. He got mostly negative criticism (some of it completely scathing). The show seemed to be a bit ahead of its time, and Szarkowski's and the museum's reputations suffered for it in the short term. But Szarkowski never backed down from his belief in the work, and gradually over the decades most of the critical voices came to agree with him.

Now Szarkowski is gone, and Eggleston is firmly cannonized, and being rediscovered by new generations of artists all the time. It's safe to say Maris has it backwards; what appeared at first to be Szarkowski's biggest mistake has from a long perspective turned out to be one of American photography's greatest success stories.

[Drew Wiley]

Trying to compare Eggleston and Porter is really, really mixing apples and oranges.
Porter shot 4x5 and made many of his own dye transfer prints until he had an assistant; Eggleston was a 35mm snapshooter who didn't pay a lot of attention immaculate focus, and didn't make his own prints. But in his own time, Porter was considered quite a revolutionary color composer. This fact seems to lost upon those who now see something of his style widely copied. Yet he had a number of his own
detractors. For me personally, Eggleston's charm starts falling apart either when he
went to medium format or when the prints have gone digital. Something of a rough
spontaneity seems essential to make his images viable. Stephen Shore was a totally
different kind of bird - almost everything he did was based upon a simple and relatively
obnoxious simultaneous contrast of Vericolor's infamous pumpkin orange and sickly cyan. Just look at the prints! Fascinating how he pulled it off, but otherwise a very
monotonous color cliche which looked novel in the 70's. Meyerowitz managed to stretch the gamut of Vericolor much further, after a lot of hit and miss experimentation. (Not critisizing the subject matter - just pointing out the chromatic
strategy - dye transfer allowed many more options.)

[mcfactor]

I think the problem with Eggleston's digital work is that its printed too large, rather than the fact that they are printed digitally. Certain feelings of intimacy are lost when his (signature style) images are printed larger than, say 16x20. I really like his 5x7 color portraits, which happen to be printed digitally and very large. The image of a man in a red shirt and black tie and jacket is great (and a beautiful print).

I disagree with your Shore comments, Drew. His images certainly went farther than blue-orange contrasts. Even if you find his images cliche compared to color images now, a photographer like AA would certain fall to the same criticism (of being cliche).

Overall, it seems you are mixing up printing with content. Shore's use of orange and blue is a content choice, rather than a printing one. Even if Shore had used the dye-transfer process, he would have ended up with orange and blue contrasts, simply because those are (some of) the colors he photographed. His recent retrospective was composed of (i believe) lightjet prints that maintained his original color-vision (more than simply blue-orange) and looked quite original even by today's standards.

[Drew Wiley]

Photographers didn't just go around seeing a world full of orange and blue; rather, they
became imprinted by what their medium was capable of. A lot of work of the 70's
revolved around the way Vericolor took to the C-papers of the time. Some of it was pretentious and some of it was elegant. Eggleston had many of his own color negative
images printed using DT pan matrix film, which has a far wider color gamut. These were
commercially made in limited editions, and some of the casualness or softness is due to
the dyes bleeding a little -typical of this kind of production. Of course, nowadays the
prints are going to made digitally, simply because very few people are left who can do
the pan matrix process, and their stockpiles of supplies are almost extinct. A person who has come up with a hybrid process is Egbert Haneke in Germany. His images are
somewhat reminiscent of Eggleston's, though patterned to modern European rather
than Southern themes. The original is scanned, then the digital file is used to expose
the 20x24 matrices by blue laser. After that, the printing sequence resumes according to the traditional dye transfer method.

[paulr]

Drew, I've been drooling over Shore's prints, in books and gallery and museum walls, for years now. I honestly don't know what you're talking about. His use of color has always struck me as a marvel of subtlety.

I have more sympathy for Eggleston detractors who say his colors are just too much. I get what they mean ... especially with some of the original dye transfers, which had such hyper saturated colors you might wonder if they were a gimmic. But they worked for me.

With shore, though, I see nothing overblown and nothing I can imagine being taken as formulaic. Maybe there are bodies of work of his that I haven't seen in person.

[Drew Wiley]

I wasn't critisizing Shore's work at all - just pointing out his color strategy and how it
developed as a response to the film he used. I find his work intriguing too, although my
own style is utterly unrelated. One of the things great photographers have always done is learn the limitations and idiosyncracies of their given medium. Less can be more. I'm afraid that the greatest weakness for many nowadays is the lack of restraint, because digital seems to offers endless options (someone will certainly pounce on me for this comment). Eggleston's work required dye transfer to come alive.
Today digital printing can duplicate some of DT's gamut advantages, but certainly not all. But originally, Eggleston's work was regarded as "non-color" color - bland and
unsaturated! In such case, I think people today tend to add a factor of nostalgia to
certain themes he was engaged with, which he seemed to play upon right from the
start.

[QT Luong]

Wasn't the hypersaturation of some of the Eggleston prints quite novel in the 70s ? It's not that you could just push the saturation slider in PS back then. Even in the commercial world, it seems that before David LaChapelle, color did not that often get "over the top".

[adrian tyler]

i'm with paul here, a couple of years ago my framers called me and said "you have to come and see these" "these" were 2 boxes of lightjet prints for a major shore retrospective here in madrid.

i spent the day leafing through the boxes before they were framed and mounted, and the hue was in no way contrasted in any of the primaries, if anything slightly subdued, very very subtle, beleivable and would hold up today alongside anything i've seen...

[Drew Wiley]

QT - compared to the dye transfer work being done back then, and even the last years of carbro, Eggleston's prints were critisized as being completelely bland. People like Meyerowitz, Shore, and Misrach came along who seemed to flaunt the unsaturated characteristics of the the C-print, and the public perception of saturation changed. Everything is relative, and things go in cycles. And photographers themselves inevitably tend to see the world through the film and print process they use. As far as the ability to saturate a print, the dye transfer process still is at the
head of the pack, with the possible exception of color carbon.

[Drew Wiley]

An afterthought - there were a few early Eggleston images where he deliberately wanted an almost lurid, sinister, other-wordly effect. This would explain the high level
of saturation in certain cases.

[paulr]

One thing that confused me with Eggleston is that I discovered his work through books. And the books (especially early editions) have very limited color saturation, thanks to the limitations of the materials. So I thought of him as someone who worked with a somewhat odd but still subtle color palette.

Then when I saw some of the die transfer prints in person, my eyes almost exploded. In fact, the subtle relationships between the colors were still there, but the first thing I noticed was the decidedly unsubtle colors themselves. It took me a little while to get used to this.