Press release — June 3, 2016
2016
(New York & London) David Zwirner is pleased to announce the gallery's exclusive worldwide representation of William Eggleston.
Over the course of nearly six decades, American artist William Eggleston has established a singular pictorial style that deftly combines vernacular subject matter with an innate and sophisticated understanding of color, form, and composition. Eggleston's vividly saturated photographs transform the ordinary into distinctive, poetic images that eschew fixed meaning. His 1976 solo exhibition William Eggleston's Guide, curated by John Szarkowski at The Museum of Modern Art, New York—the first presentation of color photography at the museum—heralded an important moment in the medium's acceptance within the art-historical canon and solidified Eggleston's position as one of its foremost practitioners, and throughout his prolific career, he has consistently developed his own uniquely recognizable and influential aesthetic.
As stated by David Zwirner, "We are honored to welcome William Eggleston to the gallery. One of the most important artists of our time, his painterly understanding of color and unmatched eye continue to exert an indisputable influence on visual culture."
In November 2016, the gallery will mount an exhibition of works drawn from Eggleston's project The Democratic Forest at the 537 West 20th Street location in New York. Likened to an epic journey or an ongoing narrative, these images, which were taken on Eggleston's travels during the 1980s, are loosely organized into thematic groupings that collectively expound on the photographer's assertion that no subject matter is more or less important. First published as a monograph featuring an introduction by Eudora Welty in 1989, The Democratic Forest was reissued in 2015 in an expanded 10-volume format by Steidl. This exhibition will present a selection of images from this significant body of work, many of which have never before been exhibited, and will be accompanied by a catalogue.
William Eggleston was born in 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee, where he continues to live today. Raised in Sumner, Mississippi, he attended Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee; Delta State College, Cleveland, Mississippi; and University of Mississippi, Oxford.
Since the 1970s, Eggleston's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide, beginning with his above-mentioned 1976 show at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (traveled to Seattle Art Museum; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Fredrick Wright Art Galleries, University of California at Los Angeles; Reed College, Portland, Oregon; and University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park). Subsequent important solo presentations were held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 1990; the Barbican Gallery, London in 1992 (traveled to Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Denmark; Folkwang Museum, Essen; and Fotomuseum Winterthur); documenta IX, Kassel, Germany in 2002; Museum Ludwig, Cologne in 2003 (traveled to Museu Serralves, Porto; Nasjonalmuseet – Museet for samstidkunst, Oslo; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Albertina, Vienna; and Dallas Museum of Art). In 2008, a major career-spanning survey, William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Videos 1961-2008 was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and Haus der Kunst in Munich; it subsequently traveled to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
More recent exhibitions have included those held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Tate Modern, London, both 2013; Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, 2009 (traveled to Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg, Sweden, both 2010). In July 2016, the National Portrait Gallery in London will host a comprehensive survey of Eggleston's portraits.
Eggleston received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1975 and has been the recipient of numerous notable awards, including the University of Memphis Distinguished Achievement Award (1996); Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (1998); International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement (2004); the Getty Images Lifetime Achievement Award (2004); and the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, République Française (Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic) (2016), among others. The Aperture Foundation will honor Eggleston in October 2016. Work by the artist is held in major international museum collections.
Founded in 1992, the Eggleston Artistic Trust is dedicated to the representation and preservation of the work of William Eggleston and is directed by his sons Winston Eggleston and William Eggleston III.