Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli at CVI Lab in New York, circa 1994.
A great photograph can often highlight a remarkable rapport between artist and subject, but there can also be such a connection between the artist and the printers who bring their works to life. This is particularly true in a process like dye transfer, which requires a high level of mastery from the printer and allows for a greater amount of control of color, contrast, balance, and saturation in the final print. There are arguably no printers who illustrate this importance to artists quite like Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli of Color Vision Imaging Laboratory (CVI Lab), whose meticulous skill in the process, from color separations to final prints, yielded works that are highly expressive, visually arresting, and archivally stable.
Their story is one of personal connections — with each other, with the art form, and with the artists they collaborated with, including such luminaries as William Eggleston, Irving Penn, Joel Sternfeld, Annie Leibovitz, Thomas Demand, Zoe Leonard, Hiro, and others.
William Eggleston, Untitled (Biloxi, Mississippi), 1974. Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli.
Phillips is deeply honored to offer Color Vision: Master Prints from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli, a series of auctions to be presented throughout 2025. Dye transfer printing, already a rare skill, is one that will soon be lost to time, as the Kodak company ceased production of dye transfer materials in 1992. What’s more, the dye transfer prints offered in these sales are the perfected master prints by which subsequent prints in a respective edition were judged — creating a unique opportunity for collectors to acquire the premiere examples of these works in existence.
Selections from the couple’s holdings will first be offered in Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli on 18 March, on view at 432 Park Avenue 11–17 March. Further material from Stricherz and Malli will be offered in a dedicated auction in June and in subsequent sales throughout 2025.
Dye transfer: An art and a science
William Eggleston, En Route to New Orleans, from Los Alamos, 1965–74. Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli.
First introduced in 1946 by Eastman Kodak, dye transfer or dye imbibition printing yields exceptional color prints, rich in detail and saturated color. Stricherz explains that a key difference between dye transfer and other color processes is that the dyes form a chemical bond within the print. He describes it rather poetically, noting, “After the three transfers, the dyes co-mingle and sort of dance to produce a bond that gives the print an almost three-dimensional look. Photographer Bruce Davidson used the term ‘pools of color’ for it — and that’s something that even someone who is not trained to view photographs sees almost immediately.” He adds, “I’ve seen amateurs look at it and say, ‘Wow, that’s extremely beautiful.’”
CVI Lab, Vashon Island, Washington.
A dye transfer print begins with a photographer’s color transparency or negative, from which the printers make three separation negatives through red, green, and blue filters. From these negatives, three gelatin relief matrices are produced, one each to “imbibe” magenta, cyan, and yellow dyes. The dye in each matrix is then transferred onto paper through a meticulous rolling process in which each application of dyes creates a glorious full-color print. Mastering dye transfer printing has been Stricherz’s and Malli’s career-long goal. Stricherz tells us that their “quest was the pursuit of the Holy Grail of color for 150 years — to produce a quality color print that was the best analogue of human color vision.”
Irene Malli at CVI Lab, Vashon Island, Washington.
William Eggleston, Untitled (Devoe Money in Jackson, Mississippi), 1970. Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli.
How CVI came to life
Polaroid of Stricherz with William Eggleston at CVI Lab in New York.
Guy Stricherz recalls that he found his passion for photography while attending Western Washington University. He worked with Kodachrome film before he and a few friends taught themselves dye transfer printing on the school’s equipment. He produced twelve dye transfer prints for his senior project and graduated Cum Laude in 1974. Following graduation, Stricherz photographed the Seattle urban landscape and found work as a color separator in the city, but the economic conditions at the time were not ideal. “It was not a good situation for jobs and so in 1977, I decided to hitchhike to New York. It was a crazy summer, but by the end of it, I was working with [master color printer] Frank Tartaro,” he tells us.
Similarly, Malli had studied painting, sculpture, photography, and filmmaking at Cooper Union and, upon graduating in 1986, found work at Studio Chrome lab producing dye transfer prints primarily for advertising. She learned the craft on the job, telling us that she “didn’t even know what dye transfer printing was. I walked in, and on the first day, I learned to roll prints. The second day, I learned to make mats, and the third day, I learned to make color separations.” She eventually sought a new challenge: “I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to spend the rest of my life making advertising photos.’”
William Eggleston, Memphis (supermarket, boy with cart), 1965. Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli.
In his role at Frank Tartaro Color Labs, Stricherz also made dye transfer prints for advertising projects, working long hours until he had saved enough to open his own lab that would work exclusively with fine art photographers. “My dream was about to come true. My friend Curtis Rowell from Western Washington University came to New York to open the CVI Lab with me in 1981 at 23 Pine Street. We were offering only dye transfer for fine art photographers that desired limited editions of their work of the highest possible quality,” he explains. “We didn’t do any advertising.”
Rowell eventually left the business to pursue his own projects. After a few years of working with others, Stricherz placed a posting for the job in The New York Times, which Irene Malli answered.
Left: CVI Lab in New York. Right: Dye transfer printing equipment at CVI.
With Malli in place, the two began working long hours together, producing prints for artists including William Eggleston, Evelyn Hofer, Thomas Demand, and many others. The couple collaborated closely with artists to exploit the unique properties of dye transfer, producing exactly the results their artists desired. Stricherz and Malli married in 1989 and raised two children in their apartment on Elizabeth Street, just around the corner from CVI.
William Eggleston, Memphis (green bathroom), 1970. Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli.
When they relocated in 2004 to Vashon Island, Washington, they recreated their New York studio to ensure the continuity of their perfectly calibrated craftsmanship. As Stricherz explains, “All the equipment is in the same location. The light switches are in the same place on the wall.” The experience was surreal at first. He jokes, “It was almost as if I could see the bodega across the street. I would start thinking about getting a snack coming out of the darkroom, and then I’d come out into this new studio and realize, ‘Oh, I’m not in New York anymore.’”
The relocation to the West Coast offered them more space, a connection to nature, and a new era of life following Kodak’s discontinuation of dye transfer materials several years prior. Irene explains that this wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it happened suddenly: “Three executives visited from Rochester, they gave us the news and we had maybe a couple of months to decide how much material we were going to buy. We thought about our options. People were starting to go digital, and we just wanted to keep doing what we were doing.”
They acquired a large stock of film, paper, and dye that allowed them to continue to produce their increasingly rare and beautiful dye transfer prints with the craft, reverence, and skill that has made their work so desirable to artists and collectors. With characteristic modesty, Malli explains, “Was this a great business idea? I don’t think so. I think it was nuts. It was scary, but it just felt like the right thing for us to do, and it worked out okay.”
Behind this unassuming statement lies a pivotal moment in photographic history — CVI’s timely acquisition of discontinued dye transfer materials ensured they could continue their craft into the 21st century, creating prints that are fundamental to our understanding of so many significant artists. If they hadn’t had this foresight, many important dye transfer prints simply wouldn’t exist.
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