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William Eggleston's Guide

By: William Eggleston
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Museum of Modern Art
ISBN: 0870703781
ISBN-13: 9780870703782
Released: 21 Oct 2002
RRP: £22.50
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Customer Reviews

Bill's artful snapshots - By: Robin Benson, 08 Apr 2003

William Eggleston's photos grow on you. Look through this book for the first time & the contents seem a bit like ordinary snapshots but look again & then again & with each viewing the images become more familiar (still with something fresh to discover each time) but now they start to blend together seamlessly. One reason for this, I think, is that the photos capture the everyday & the ordinary. Taken around Eggleston's hometown of Memphis & in the Deep South, they show some of his relations, street scenes, interiors, buildings & more, though the captions only state the locations. John Szarkowski says in the books introduction "..today's most radical & suggestive colour photography derives much of its vigor from commonplace models" This capturing of the everyday & in colour divided the critics in 1976 when the Museum of Modern Art used seventy-five of Egglestons's images for their first exhibition of colour photography. The 'Guide' unfortunately only shows forty-eight from the show.

Art photography until this exhibition was in black & white & had been for years, colour photos were mostly for ads, commercial print & snapshots. Thankfully the Museum's curator of photography, Szarkowski, had the good sense to alllow the public to see something new & fresh. I think the 'Guide' is a good introduction to Eggleston & if you like his creative vision, as I do, have a look at these two books of his work:The Democratic Forest & Ancient & Modern. Both are full of wonderful colour photos of the American everyday.