William Eggleston

William Eggleston is one of the most influential photographers of the last half-century. Hailed as the father of colour photography, his ability to find beauty in the banal has changed the way we look at the world. Along with Gary Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, Eggleston forms part of a generation of post-war photographers whose works liberated the medium from the restrictive rules and conventions of the period. A Southerner raised on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta, Eggleston has created a singular portrait of his native South. His colour prints monumentalise the everyday: the parking lots, diners, motel rooms and lives of the people of his native environment. Behind Eggleston's deceptive casualness lies an acute and instinctive sense of colour and form, and under his gaze the ordinary is invested with powerful significance.

Born in 1939, William Eggleston has lived and worked in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee throughout most of his sixty-year career.  In 1998, he was awarded the Hasslblad Foundation International Award in Photography.  His works have been exhibited extensively at institutions such as Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2007), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2005), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen (2004), Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris (2002) and Hayward Gallery, London (2002). His most recent exhibitions include a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008), which will tour to various international venues through 2010.

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