Greenwood, Mississippi, was included in Eggleston’s seminal 1976 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Photographs by William Eggleston. Within the context of the exhibition and the accompanying book, William Eggleston’s Guide, the photograph stands out as the only depiction of nudity. It is also one of the few images shot entirely in artificial light, presenting an interior space tinged with mystery.

This photograph was made in the Greenwood, Mississippi, home of Eggleston’s friend Dr. Thomas Chester Boring, a dentist, Navy veteran, and well-known fixture in the Memphis demimonde. Boring was the kind of character Eggleston was drawn to: highly intelligent, a born raconteur, and a committed nonconformist within the conservative Southern environment the two shared. The photographer described Boring as ‘a perfect gentleman. Well dressed, impeccable manners, a southern gentlemen,’ albeit one with a seemingly insatiable appetite for nightlife in Greenwood’s bars, music clubs, and juke joints. Boring makes a memorable appearance in Eggleston’s feature-length video Stranded in Canton, filmed in 1973 and 1974 with the then-new Sony Portapak video camera, but only formally released in 2005. In this clip, Boring holds forth on a wide variety of subjects ranging from dentistry to barbiturates to surveillance photography. Untitled (blue ceiling), lot 14, and Greenwood, Mississippi (the red ceiling), lot 15, were also taken in Dr. Boring’s house.  

The photographs in this sale are master prints from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli of Color Vision Imaging Laboratory. They are the perfected dye transfer prints by which subsequent prints in the edition were judged. Acknowledged masters of the exacting dye transfer process, Mr. Stricherz and Ms. Malli achieved a level of skill in their craft that has not been surpassed. Working in partnership with William Eggleston and other eminent photographers, they have played a crucial role in raising the standard for color photography. Founded in New York City in 1981, CVI Lab became a destination for photographers looking for the finest color prints possible. Mr. Stricherz and Ms. Malli have steadily pushed the dye transfer technique forward, fine tuning the process’s many variables into a highly expressive, visually arresting, and archivally stable medium. For more information on Guy Stricherz, Irene Malli, and CVI Lab, click here.