Americus, Georgia
William Eggleston
American, born 1939
1976
A color photograph printed as a chromogenic print that quietly frames an ordinary roadside building in Americus, Georgia, as Eggleston sought to reveal the aesthetic weight and mood of everyday, vernacular American life.
The image arrests you with its warm, dusk light—a lone bulb gilding the pale concrete-block façade while an empty dirt lot and encircling trees give the scene a hushed, slightly uncanny stillness.
This 1976 work is typical of Eggleston’s project to legitimize color photography as fine art by treating commonplace, vernacular scenes with the same attention and ambiguity long reserved for traditional subjects, reshaping how photographers and museums value color and the ordinary.
Medium
Chromogenic print
Dimensions
10 1/4 × 15" (25.9 × 38.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden, by exchange
Accession
217.1986.50
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
