William Eggleston: Polaroid SX-70

Description

This book is a facsimile of an album of Eggleston's Polaroids assembled by the photographer himself, and containing the only photos he made in this medium. Consisting of 56 images taken with the Polaroid SX-70 (the now cult camera produced between 1972 and 1981) and handmounted in a black leather album also produced by the company, Polaroid SX-70 is the fi rst publication of Eggleston's Polaroids. The gloriously mundane subjects of these photos-a Mississippi street sign, a telephone book, stacked crates of empty soda bottles-are familiar Eggleston territory, but fascinatingly all of these Polaroids were taken outdoors. They are rare records of Eggleston's strolls or drives in and around Mississippi, complement the majority of his work made with color negative fi lm or color slides, and show his ironic fl air for photo-sequencing in book form. Something new always slowly changes right in front of your eyes-it just happens. - William Eggleston

Born in Memphis in 1939, William Eggleston is regarded as one of the greatest photog-raphers of his generation and a major American artist who has fundamentally changed how the urban landscape is viewed. He obtained his first camera in 1957 and was later profoundly influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment. Eggleston introduced dye-transfer printing, a previously commercial photographic process, into the making of artists' prints. His exhibition "Photographs by William Eggleston" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1976 was a milestone. He was also involved in the development of video technology in the seventies. Eggleston is represented in museums worldwide, and in 2008 a retrospective of his work was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and at Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2009. Eggleston's books published by Steidl include Chromes (2011), Los Alamos Revisited (2012), The Democratic Forest (2015) and Election Eve (2017)

The godfather of colour photography has released a new photo book, shedding light on a little-known facet of his output - his sumptuously sun-drenched Polaroids.--Daisy Woodward "AnOther"