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William Eggleston arrives (again)

36 of American photographer William Eggleston's prints were auctioned a couple of week's ago at Christie’s for $5.9 million in a benefit for the Eggleston Artistic Trust.  They were digital prints in limited editions of two (with only one available at this time), sized at 44 x 60 inches.

Joshua Holdeman at Christies said,

'Eggleston has been kind of stuck in the old school world of the photography collectors for a long time, whose primary concerns are about process, print type, print date, etcetera. [...] for contemporary art collectors it’s much more about the object itself—they couldn’t care if it’s a dye transfer or a pigment print or whatever, as long as the object itself is totally amazing, that’s what they care about.

'This is an attempt to start a migration of Eggleston from the quote unquote confines of the photography world into the larger context of the art world. I think it was probably the most important event for Eggleston in a long, long time.'




At first I thought this was one more story where photography has come in from the cold and now appeals to proper art buyers - printed at painting size.  Maybe it is but it is also possible that people who grew up with an inclusive sensibility to photography now have the means to buy great photographs.  Also art institutions (like the Tate here in Britain) have come to realise there is an educated two-generation-wide audience interested in photography who they can profitably tap for big ticket sale shows - and also if they opt out of collecting great photography forever there would have been the risk of further damage to their credibility and relevance.

The V&A owns a vintage, smaller version of this trike photo, printed using a difficult dye transfer method, which is breathtakingly beautiful and which just zings off the wall.