Originally Posted by mcfactor
I don't think Bill printed the dye transfers himself, but he did "art direct" the printers on what he wanted from the images.
I don't think Bill printed the dye transfers himself, but he did "art direct" the printers on what he wanted from the images.
Ron McElroy
Memphis
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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").
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, 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."
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.
Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".
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...
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.
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