William Eggleston Portraits

"So many people take those simple snapshots of life, but there's something about Eggleston that no one can match." -Sofia Coppola

The eminent American photographer William Eggleston (b. 1939) was a pioneer in exploring the artistic potential of color photography. Eggleston made a name for himself with his eccentric, unexpected compositions of everyday life that were nonetheless rife with implied narrative, elevating the commonplace to art. This sumptuously illustrated book features Eggleston's masterful portraits, including the artist's first color photograph-a study of a young clerk pushing shopping carts at a supermarket-from his Los Alamos series. There are many other familiar and beloved images as well as some previously unseen photographs from his long and productive career.

Many of Eggleston's poetic photographs portray life in his home state of Tennessee, and the people he encountered there. Eggleston frequented the 1970s Memphis club scene, where he met, befriended, and photographed musicians such as fellow Southerners Alex Chilton and Ike Turner. He also photographed celebrities including Dennis Hopper, Walter Hopps, and Eudora Welty, and became a fixture of Andy Warhol's Factory scene, dating the Warhol protege Viva. Over the past half century, he has created a powerful and enduring body of work featuring friends and family, musicians, artists, and strangers. In addition to the lavish reproductions of Eggleston's portraits, this volume includes an essay and chronology, plus an interview with Eggleston and his close family members that gives new insights into his images and artistic process.

“"To me this is Eggleston's genius: he manages to conjure from his photographs something akin to the memory of a person or people as much as the physical facts of their presence. . . . [Eggleston is] not just a great photographer but a great artist too."--Ben Luke, Evening Standard (UK)”

"Eggleston never diminishes what he sees but somehow enlarges both the momentous and the trivial. . . . Each photograph is freighted with untold stories."-Adrian Searle, Guardian "The abundance of recent collections of Eggleston's work does not diminish the allure of this one. . . . Some of the pictures are extremely well known . . . others are less so: page after page of riveting, often untitled character studies. . . . If you're curious about Eggleston . . . this book is not a bad place to start."-Luc Sante, New York Times Book Review ("Top Photography Books") "To me this is Eggleston's genius: he manages to conjure from his photographs something akin to the memory of a person or people as much as the physical facts of their presence. . . . [Eggleston is] not just a great photographer but a great artist too."-Ben Luke, Evening Standard (UK)

Phillip Prodger is the Lisette Model/Joseph G. Blum Fellow in history of photography at the National Gallery of Canada. He received a Ph.D. in history of art from the University of Cambridge, a Master's from Stanford University and a B.A. from Williams College. The author of many articles, he is editor of "Impressionist Camera: Pictorial Photography in Europe 1888-1918", and author of "Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement". His book "Darwin's Camera" will be published in 2007.

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