In 1974, while teaching photography at Harvard University, William Eggleston privately published this limited-edition portfolio of 14 Pictures. Although it was the first such venture of his career, Eggleston still regards this suite as one of the best groupings of his work. These fourteen photographs are unified by a notable absence of human protagonists, and a striking use of raking angles; these qualities lend an evocative and somewhat mysterious air to these otherwise ordinary scenes of suburban Memphis.
The most distinguishing feature of the present work is its use of dye-transfer printing. In addition to The Red Ceiling (1973), which quickly entered the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, the prints in 14 Pictures were among the first that Eggleston created with this process. The artist discovered this new method of printing color negatives in 1973. Eggleston recalled, ‘I was reading the price list of this lab in Chicago, and it advertised “from the cheapest to the ultimate print.” The ultimate print was a dye-transfer. I went straight up there to look and everything I saw was commercial work like pictures of cigarette packs or perfume bottles but the color saturation and the quality of the ink was overwhelming. I couldn't wait to see what a plain Eggleston picture would look like with the same process. Every photograph I subsequently printed with the process seemed fantastic and each one seemed better than the previous one’ (quoted in William Eggleston: Ancient and Modern, p. 16).
This portfolio offers a masterclass in the use of color in photography. Nearly all the prints feature the vivid reds and yellows that the artist favored in the early 1970s, but he uses them sparingly in this portfolio, presenting glimpses of bright color amidst more muted tints. Eggleston’s deft and decisive deployment of color yields a maximum of pictorial impact.
