Before Color (First Edition)

William Eggleston (artist); Chris Burnside; John Cheim; Howard Read; Thomas Weski; Winston Eggleston (editors); Dave Hickey (essay)

ISBN 10: 3869301228 / ISBN 13: 9783869301228

Published by Steidl, Göttingen, 2010

About this Item

First printing. A very fine (as-new) copy, issued without a jacket. A clean, unmarked copy.

Seller Inventory # FLAHIVE-3031

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Before Color (First Edition)
• Publisher: Steidl, Göttingen
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3869301228
• ISBN 13: 9783869301228
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Art

About this title

Synopsis

A few years ago a box was found in the archives of the William Eggleston Artistic Trust in Memphis, containing Eggleston's earliest photography―remarkably, in black and white. The photos were subsequently exhibited and sold at Cheim & Read gallery in New York. This book reunites these photos in their entirety, and shows the artistic beginnings of a pioneer of contemporary photography. In the late 1950s, Eggleston began photographing suburban Memphis using high-speed 35 mm black-and-white film, developing the style and motifs that would come to shape his pivotal color work, including diners, supermarkets, domestic interiors and people engaged in seemingly trivial and banal situations. Now, 50 years later, all the plates in Before Color have been scanned from vintage prints developed by Eggleston in his own darkroom. In the mid-1960s Eggleston discovered color film and was immediately satisfied with the results: "And by God, it worked. Just overnight." Eggleston then abandoned black-and-white photography, but its fundamental influence on his practice is undeniable.