William Eggleston: Paris Hardback - 2009

For photographers, the city of Paris must constitute a genre of its own (alongside "nudes" or "botanical"), so perennially photogenic are its streets, skylines, storefronts and people. Here, William Eggleston--"The Father of Color Photography"--offers a brilliant, unusual take on Paris today, with depictions that completely revitalize our sense of this most picturesque of cities. Eggleston spent three years working throughout different seasons, to craft images that reveal surprising and rarely-seen facets of the city, as one might expect from the lens of a photographer most associated with the American South. Eggleston constructs with color--the brilliant yellow of a shop front, the intense blue of a street sign, the carnival colors on a merry-go-round--and of course with little gems of detail--plastic flowers in a shop window, a plastic bag or a woman's supersaturated red shoes--locating effects that are simultaneously rustic and cosmopolitan, glamorous and gritty, everyday and extraordinary. The first print appearance of this new work, Paris is published for Eggleston's exhibition at Paris's Fondation Cartier, and also includes paintings juxtaposed with the photographs that inspired them. His Paris is a triumphant successor to Eugne Atget and Henri Cartier-Bresson.