# William Eggleston

**William Eggleston** (born 1939) is an American photographer widely credited with establishing color photography as a fine-art medium, best known for saturated dye-transfer (printing process transferring dyes to give rich, controllable color) prints of ordinary scenes in and around [Memphis, Tennessee](https://www.edgepedia.org/memphis-tennessee), and the [Mississippi Delta](https://www.edgepedia.org/mississippi-delta). His 1976 solo exhibition at the [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/museum-of-modern-art) in New York, accompanied by the book *William Eggleston's Guide*, followed earlier MoMA exhibitions of color photography such as Ernst Haas: Color Photography in 1962, but it remains the pivotal moment in the medium's artistic acceptance.<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://whitney.org/artists/3502)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[19](https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3432)</sup>

| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | 1939, Memphis, Tennessee; childhood in Sumner, Mississippi, on his family's cotton farm<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup> (the Whitney gives his birthplace as Sumner<sup>[3](https://whitney.org/exhibitions/william-eggleston)</sup>) |
| Signature exhibition | "Photographs by William Eggleston," MoMA, 1976; about 75 dye-transfer prints, with the catalog *William Eggleston's Guide*, the museum's first publication devoted entirely to color photography<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[4](https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5391/releases/MOMA_1976_0051_40.pdf)</sup>  |
| Initial reception | Gene Thornton of The New York Times reportedly voted it "the most hated show of the year"; critic Hilton Kramer wrote "Perfect? Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly."<sup>[5](https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/photography/galleries-and-exhibitions/william-egglestons-photographs-were-once-voted-the-most-hated-of-the-year-but-this-new-retrospective-proves-just-how-wrong-critics-can-be)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[6](https://smarthistory.org/william-eggleston-memphis/)</sup>  |
| Printing method | Dye transfer, a costly commercial process he adopted in the early 1970s to control color "much as a painter would"<sup>[2](https://whitney.org/artists/3502)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[7](https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/collection/artists/william-eggleston)</sup>  |
| Major series | *Los Alamos* (negatives 1965–1974, 75 dye-transfer prints); *Election Eve* (1976, Georgia before Jimmy Carter's election); *The Democratic Forest* (1989)<sup>[8](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/william-eggleston-los-alamos)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[9](https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/the-new-american-colour-photography/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://whitney.org/artists/3502)</sup>  |
| Honors | Guggenheim Fellowship 1974; National Endowment for the Arts fellowship 1975; Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography 1998; Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society 2003<sup>[4](https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5391/releases/MOMA_1976_0051_40.pdf)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://whitney.org/artists/3502)</sup>  |
| Legacy institution | The Eggleston Art Foundation, a nonprofit established in 2019 and based in Memphis, houses the Eggleston Archive; the artist is represented exclusively by David Zwirner<sup>[10](https://egglestonartfoundation.org/)</sup> |

## Early life and education

Eggleston was born in 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee, and spent his childhood in Sumner, Mississippi, on his family's cotton farm before being sent to boarding school.<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup> After brief tenures at two colleges, he enrolled at the [University of Mississippi](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-mississippi) in Oxford but never completed a degree.<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup> He began shooting black-and-white photographs at age eighteen, taking instruction from books by [Walker Evans](https://www.edgepedia.org/walker-evans) and [Henri Cartier-Bresson](https://www.edgepedia.org/henri-cartier-bresson).<sup>[11](https://www.sfmoma.org/press/release/william-eggleston-los-alamos-at-sfmoma/)</sup> At Ole Miss he encountered Cartier-Bresson's idea of the "decisive moment," an influence visible in his early black-and-white work.<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup> In the early 1960s he married and moved to Memphis, where he has lived since.<sup>[3](https://whitney.org/exhibitions/william-eggleston)</sup>

## The move to color

Eggleston began experimenting with color in the mid-1960s, first with color negative film and then slide film.<sup>[11](https://www.sfmoma.org/press/release/william-eggleston-los-alamos-at-sfmoma/)</sup> MoMA partly credits the turn to a friendship Eggleston had with William Christenberry, an artist who took small color pictures of the Southern countryside and its everyday buildings to use as references for his paintings.<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup> Around the same time, Eggleston began visiting a commercial processing laboratory where a friend worked the night shift, and became captivated by the unselfconscious compositions of amateur prints coming off the machines. He later recalled: "I started daydreaming about taking a particular kind of picture, because I figured if amateurs working with cheap cameras could do this, I could use good cameras and really come up with something."<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup>

At the time, color photography was largely confined to commercial advertising and amateur snapshots; many critics regarded it as aesthetically inferior to black and white, and Walker Evans dismissed color as "vulgar."<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup> In 1967 Eggleston traveled to New York to meet John Szarkowski, MoMA's director of photography, who encouraged him, then 28, to pursue color and introduced him to photographers including [Diane Arbus](https://www.edgepedia.org/diane-arbus), Lee Friedlander, and [Garry Winogrand](https://www.edgepedia.org/garry-winogrand).<sup>[6](https://smarthistory.org/william-eggleston-memphis/)</sup>

## The 1976 MoMA exhibition

In May 1976 Szarkowski mounted "Photographs by William Eggleston" at MoMA, an exhibition of approximately 75 lushly saturated dye-transfer prints, accompanied by *William Eggleston's Guide*, a 112-page book with 48 color plates and MoMA's first publication devoted entirely to color photography.<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[4](https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5391/releases/MOMA_1976_0051_40.pdf)</sup>  In his introduction Szarkowski declared the photographs "perfect: irreducible surrogates for the experience they pretend to record, visual analogues for the quality of one life, collectively a paradigm of a private view, a view one would have thought ineffable, described here with clarity, fullness, and elegance."<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup>

The claim provoked strong backlash. Hilton Kramer, chief art critic of The New York Times, answered: "Perfect? Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly," and described Eggleston's family and friends as "dismal figures inhabiting a commonplace world of little visual interest."<sup>[6](https://smarthistory.org/william-eggleston-memphis/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[5](https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/photography/galleries-and-exhibitions/william-egglestons-photographs-were-once-voted-the-most-hated-of-the-year-but-this-new-retrospective-proves-just-how-wrong-critics-can-be)</sup>  A fellow Times writer, Gene Thornton, reportedly voted it the most hated show of the year.<sup>[5](https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/photography/galleries-and-exhibitions/william-egglestons-photographs-were-once-voted-the-most-hated-of-the-year-but-this-new-retrospective-proves-just-how-wrong-critics-can-be)</sup> A later account by the writer Jeffrey Kastner argues that the legend of universal panning has been overstated, though many critics were unimpressed by the snapshot-style pictures of the everyday.<sup>[12](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/feb/18/he-couldnt-be-happier-celebrating-william-egglestons-incredible-photography)</sup> In retrospect, the show and catalog are seen as the moment color photography entered the fine-art canon; for a generation of photographers including William Christenberry, Joel Meyerowitz, John Pfahl, and [Stephen Shore](https://www.edgepedia.org/stephen-shore), it affirmed that serious artistic work could be made in color and in unassuming subjects.<sup>[13](https://www.artic.edu/files/5706efb8-fbd1-443e-88be-47d1a385f70f/AIC_MuseumStudies_35-2_UPDF.pdf)</sup>

## The democratic camera and dye transfer

Eggleston described his method as "a democratic way of looking around, that nothing was more or less important."<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup> His subjects are the tricycle, the tiled bathroom wall, the interior of a kitchen stove, the contents of a freezer, a red ceiling in a friend's house; his photographs are not preplanned, and their emotional tenor stays neutral while the saturated dye-transfer hues lend them drama.<sup>[5](https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/photography/galleries-and-exhibitions/william-egglestons-photographs-were-once-voted-the-most-hated-of-the-year-but-this-new-retrospective-proves-just-how-wrong-critics-can-be)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://whitney.org/artists/3502)</sup>  He taught at Harvard in 1973 and 1974, where he developed his use of the dye-transfer process, a technique borrowed from advertising that let him control color "much as a painter would."<sup>[7](https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/collection/artists/william-eggleston)</sup> The prints were made at commercial labs, including Berkey K+L Color Labs in New York and K&S Photo Labs in Chicago.<sup>[4](https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5391/releases/MOMA_1976_0051_40.pdf)</sup>

The tricycle photograph, variously known as *Untitled*, *Tricycle*, and *Memphis* (1970), appeared on the cover of *William Eggleston's Guide* and is now considered a classic; the catalog remains in print.<sup>[14](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/william-egglestons-big-wheels-17143399/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[6](https://smarthistory.org/william-eggleston-memphis/)</sup>  *Greenwood, Mississippi* (1973), a bare lightbulb in an overwhelmingly red room, is another emblematic image.<sup>[1](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)</sup>

## Major series and later career

**Los Alamos.** This portfolio comprises 75 dye-transfer prints from color negatives made between 1965 and 1974 in Memphis and on cross-country road trips through the South; it includes Eggleston's first color photograph, *Untitled, Memphis* (1965), showing a young clerk pushing a train of shopping carts at a supermarket.<sup>[8](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/william-eggleston-los-alamos)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[11](https://www.sfmoma.org/press/release/william-eggleston-los-alamos-at-sfmoma/)</sup>

**Election Eve.** In 1976, on a commission from *Rolling Stone*, Eggleston photographed in Georgia shortly before its governor, [Jimmy Carter](https://www.edgepedia.org/jimmy-carter), was elected president; the twilight, low-angle images of the *Election Eve* albums are counted among his finest work.<sup>[9](https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/the-new-american-colour-photography/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[7](https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/collection/artists/william-eggleston)</sup>

**Books and video.** His books include *William Eggleston's Guide* (1976) and *The Democratic Forest* (1989), the latter introduced by the writer [Eudora Welty](https://www.edgepedia.org/eudora-welty).<sup>[2](https://whitney.org/artists/3502)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[15](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/eggleston-an-exceptional-eye-for-the-ordinary)</sup>  His little-known early-1970s video work *Stranded in Canton* was shown in the 2008–2009 retrospective *William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008*, his first United States retrospective, organized by the Whitney Museum with Haus der Kunst, Munich.<sup>[16](https://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/william-eggleston-democratic-camera-photographs-and-video-1961-2008)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[3](https://whitney.org/exhibitions/william-eggleston)</sup>

**The last dyes.** When Kodak discontinued its dye-transfer products in the 1990s, the Eggleston family bought up remaining stocks; only about 50 photographs were ultimately chosen for final printing, each batch of 10 taking six to eight months by the specialists Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli.<sup>[12](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/feb/18/he-couldnt-be-happier-celebrating-william-egglestons-incredible-photography)</sup> Thirty-one of these prints appeared in *William Eggleston: The Last Dyes* at David Zwirner, New York, in early 2026, described as the final prints ever made of Eggleston's images using the analog process.<sup>[12](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/feb/18/he-couldnt-be-happier-celebrating-william-egglestons-incredible-photography)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[17](https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2026/william-eggleston-the-last-dyes)</sup>

## Influence

Eggleston is credited with legitimizing color photography as an art form worthy of critical response, and his work has influenced photographers including [Nan Goldin](https://www.edgepedia.org/nan-goldin), Richard Billingham, and [Alec Soth](https://www.edgepedia.org/alec-soth).<sup>[11](https://www.sfmoma.org/press/release/william-eggleston-los-alamos-at-sfmoma/)</sup> The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2013 exhibition *At War with the Obvious* described his photographs of commonplace subjects as touchstones for generations of artists, musicians, and filmmakers from Nan Goldin to [David Byrne](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-byrne), the Coen Brothers, and David Lynch.<sup>[18](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/william-eggleston)</sup> The Eggleston Art Foundation, established in 2019 in Memphis, houses the Eggleston Archive and supports the William Eggleston Catalogue Raisonné, a project to document a complete inventory of his imagery.<sup>[10](https://egglestonartfoundation.org/)</sup>

## References

1. [William Eggleston, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/artists/1690-william-eggleston)
2. [William Eggleston, Whitney Museum of American Art](https://whitney.org/artists/3502)
3. [William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008, Whitney Museum of American Art](https://whitney.org/exhibitions/william-eggleston)
4. [Color Photographs by William Eggleston, MoMA press release, May 25, 1976](https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5391/releases/MOMA_1976_0051_40.pdf)
5. [William Eggleston's photographs were once voted the most hated of the year, Digital Camera World](https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/photography/galleries-and-exhibitions/william-egglestons-photographs-were-once-voted-the-most-hated-of-the-year-but-this-new-retrospective-proves-just-how-wrong-critics-can-be)
6. [William Eggleston, Memphis, Smarthistory](https://smarthistory.org/william-eggleston-memphis/)
7. [William Eggleston, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain](https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/collection/artists/william-eggleston)
8. [William Eggleston: Los Alamos, The Metropolitan Museum of Art](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/william-eggleston-los-alamos)
9. [The New American Colour Photography, National Gallery of Australia](https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/the-new-american-colour-photography/)
10. [Eggleston Art Foundation](https://egglestonartfoundation.org/)
11. [William Eggleston: Los Alamos at SFMOMA, press release](https://www.sfmoma.org/press/release/william-eggleston-los-alamos-at-sfmoma/)
12. ["He couldn't be happier": celebrating William Eggleston's incredible photography, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/feb/18/he-couldnt-be-happier-celebrating-william-egglestons-incredible-photography)
13. [Notable Acquisitions, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 35-2](https://www.artic.edu/files/5706efb8-fbd1-443e-88be-47d1a385f70f/AIC_MuseumStudies_35-2_UPDF.pdf)
14. [William Eggleston's Big Wheels, Smithsonian Magazine](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/william-egglestons-big-wheels-17143399/)
15. [Eggleston: An Exceptional Eye for the Ordinary, PBS NewsHour](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/eggleston-an-exceptional-eye-for-the-ordinary)
16. [William Eggleston: Democratic Camera—Photographs and Video, 1961–2008, LACMA](https://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/william-eggleston-democratic-camera-photographs-and-video-1961-2008)
17. [William Eggleston: The Last Dyes, David Zwirner](https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2026/william-eggleston-the-last-dyes)
18. [At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston, The Metropolitan Museum of Art](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/william-eggleston)
19. [moma.org](https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3432)

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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Visual arts and design › Photographers › Fine art and documentary photographers*

*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*

*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*

License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license