William Eggleston

William Eggleston was born in Memphis in 1939 and grew up in Sumner, Mississippi, attending Vanderbilt, Delta State and the University of Mississippi without taking a degree. He began in black and white under the influence of Cartier-Bresson and turned to colour in the mid-1960s, photographing the unremarkable — a tricycle, an open freezer, a red ceiling, a Memphis suburb at dusk — as if nothing in the frame mattered more than anything else. William Eggleston's Guide, shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976 under John Szarkowski, was received with open hostility and is now usually credited with making colour acceptable in the museum. The saturated dye-transfer prints of the 1970s, above all The Red Ceiling, are what most people picture.

Process and date of printing matter more with Eggleston than with most photographers, because one negative can exist as a vintage dye-transfer print, a chromogenic print and a much later pigment print at a different size, and those are different objects. Dye-transfer prints of the 1970s and 1980s are the most closely scrutinised category. Later editions, including large pigment prints of famous early images, were issued as distinct editions, so edition number, size and printing date need establishing together. Signature is usually on the verso or a label. Dye-transfer colour is relatively stable, but the surfaces mark easily. The Eggleston Artistic Trust in Memphis holds the archive and is the reference.