“Anyone who knows Eggleston’s work knows that he’s a great poet of the color red.” 

—Donna Tartt, author

No other photograph within William Eggleston’s oeuvre demonstrates his ability to create compelling imagery from unlikely subject matter as Greenwood, Mississippi, an image now almost universally known as The Red Ceiling. Rarely have a bare lightbulb and jerry-rigged extension cords been put to such effective compositional use, creating an energized space in which the color red predominates. In addition to its airtight composition is the technical feat of recreating the crimson color of the walls. The dye transfer process is the perfect medium for this endeavor, no other printing process before or since can produce a red of such saturated intensity. Eggleston’s requirements for this print were high, and master printers Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli were ideally suited to bringing his concept of perfect color into being. Eggleston said of this image that he has never been satisfied with reproductions of it, but ‘When you look at a dye transfer print, it’s like it’s red blood that is wet on the wall.”

“The photograph was like a Bach exercise for me because I knew that red was the most difficult color to work with. A little red is usually enough, but to work with an entire red surface was a challenge. It was hard to do. I don’t know of any totally red pictures, except in advertising. The photograph is still powerful. It shocks you every time.”

—William Eggleston

Greenwood, Mississippi, has few corollaries in 20^th or 21^st century photography. It draws inevitable comparison to Matisse’s monumental 1911 painting The Red Studio for the predominance of the titular color. But there are strong resonances between the two works that extend beyond their use of the color red: the seemingly haphazard, ultimately harmonious, placement of objects within Matisse’s studio is echoed in Eggleston’s picture, as is the strategic insertion of other color elements throughout.

This photograph comes from a select group of large-format dye transfer prints William Eggleston made in 2015 that has become known as The Magnificent Seven. This group consists of seven of his best known and most iconic photographs – photographs which have come to be associated with his artistic achievement over seven decades. To realize this project, Eggleston worked closely with master printers Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli who had sourced a stock of dye transfer materials, which had long before been discontinued by Kodak. Eggleston completed the set of seven dye transfer prints, each a photographic masterpiece, in an edition of ten. Each is the largest dye transfer print of the image ever executed. This is the first time photographs from The Magnificent Seven have appeared at auction.    

The Magnificent Seven present a concise overview of Eggleston’s career. The appellation draws comparisons to cinema and the financial markets. Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film masterpiece The Seven Samurai was initially released in the United States under the title The Magnificent Seven. In 1960, Kurosawa’s screenplay was adapted into a Western, the blockbuster film The Magnificent Seven. Much later, financial analyst Michael Hartnett used the term Magnificent Seven to describe the stock of the seven dominant companies in the stock market.

Whether the comparison is to cinema or the financial markets, the term Magnificent Seven refers to a selection of seven archetypal entities chosen from many for their excellence. In all instances the seven are the best of the group, each a perfect example of its type, that also represent the whole. It is a perfect name for this carefully selected suite of masterworks by William Eggleston. 

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.