William Eggleston prints sell for 5.9 million

[karenoliver]

Can anyone ever imagine selling their work for over 5 million? :-)

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/Eg...-Ev-4928.shtml

Eggleston's First-Ever Large Pigment Prints Earn 5.9 Million at Auction


Amazing! :-)

Karen

[GeoffWessex]

Sorry, but I still can't see why anybody would want to pay $5 for 'an Eggleston'..... never mind 5 million! We'll just have to agree to differ. He didn't even give his pictures names!

[karenoliver]

Originally Posted by GeoffWessex

Sorry, but I still can't see why anybody would want to pay $5 for 'an Eggleston'..... never mind 5 million! We'll just have to agree to differ. He didn't even give his pictures names!

Well, you don't have to name your art or photographs, you don't even have to explain them to anyone if you don't want to. The photographs should speak for themselves or be open to subjective experience :-) I actually like the fact he is not arty-farty about his work and that he just makes the images because something in the scene attracts him to it.

I suppose the value in his work is due to the fact that he is regarded as one of the early pioneers of colour photography and that everything changed when people began to regard colour photography as much as an art form as black and white.


Karen

[Markulous]

Originally Posted by karenoliver

Can anyone ever imagine selling their work for over 5 million? :-)

Most of my work is worth well over that figure which is why you won't see it as I don't wanted it nicked - the pics you do see are my rejected 'seconds'!

As for Eggleston: nice enough and if someone wants to spend their money on it.........

[GeoffWessex]

I think he was a bit late to be considered 'a pioneer of colour photography'....... Kodachrome (having already been around for ten years in a more primitive form) was finally released in 1935, AgfaColor followed in 1936. Eggleston 'discovered' it in 1965. Even I was using colour in 1962, when I was 11 (not Kodachrome, of course - far too expensive). Now, I'm not saying that my early pictures would be worth a fortune, but mine were sharp, reasonably well exposed and developed, with some form of composition learned from my Art teacher.

Regarding 'Untitled' images (I think all of them).... imagine the scene.

"I'd like an Eggleston print, please, Mr Shopkeeper".
"Certainly sir, what's the name of the print you'd like?"
"Er - no idea, sorry, it's 'untitled', but it's a badly composed and developed picture of a sign on top of a shop."
"Oh yes, I know the one..... from 1973."

(and the shopkeeper's VAT inspector may have trouble understanding that fifteen items called 'Untitled' were sold, at wildly differing prices).

[karenoliver]

Originally Posted by GeoffWessex

I think he was a bit late to be considered 'a pioneer of colour photography'....... Kodachrome (having already been around for ten years in a more primitive form) was finally released in 1935, AgfaColor followed in 1936. Eggleston 'discovered' it in 1965. Even I was using colour in 1962, when I was 11 (not Kodachrome, of course - far too expensive). Now, I'm not saying that my early pictures would be worth a fortune, but mine were sharp, reasonably well exposed and developed, with some form of composition learned from my Art teacher.

Regarding 'Untitled' images (I think all of them).... imagine the scene.

"I'd like an Eggleston print, please, Mr Shopkeeper".
"Certainly sir, what's the name of the print you'd like?"
"Er - no idea, sorry, it's 'untitled', but it's a badly composed and developed picture of a sign on top of a shop."
"Oh yes, I know the one..... from 1973."

(and the shopkeeper's VAT inspector may have trouble understanding that fifteen items called 'Untitled' were sold, at wildly differing prices).

Well according to the V&A "William Eggleston's colour photographs pinpoint the moment when colour photography began to be generally accepted as part of the language of art photography."

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/micros...rapherid=ph020

and " William Eggleston, known as "the Father of Colour Photography", possessed a kind of mischievous punk aesthetic when he clashed with the photographic orthodoxy in the mid-Sixties."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/w...r-7418254.html

He was not the first ever person to use colour film but he was one of the early pioneers of colour art photography as I said before :-) That had previously been dominated by black and white work.

I mean some people like him, some don't but obviously he has been sucessful enough to sell his work for over 5.9 million so he must have done something right :-)

I also think people who were familiar enough with his work to purchase it would have no problems describing the image they want to purchase to someone at Christies for example.

I wish I had the money to buy some original prints, I would buy them in a heartbeat! I recently purchased " Chromes" a 3 book box set which was £209 with some of my poty money and the work in it has totally blown me away - I just love the guy :-)

Karen

[karenoliver]

Originally Posted by Markulous

Most of my work is worth well over that figure which is why you won't see it as I don't wanted it nicked - the pics you do see are my rejected 'seconds'!

As for Eggleston: nice enough and if someone wants to spend their money on it.........

lol same here, Mark :-)

Karen

[Cathus]

I think Tracey Emmin has sold work for many many thousands of pounds. That doesn't mean she is any good, it just means someone has been willing to pay a lot of money.

the financial value of a work says nothing about the skill of the creator, it just means someone, artist, purchaser or reviewer considers themselves in some way elite.

[GeoffWessex]

Yep, OK Karen...... I see the distinction you're making...... 'photographic art in colour', not just 'photography in colour' - fair enough. I think I've said too much already.... I don't want to fall out with anybody.

You'll enjoy this video about him.

[karenoliver]

Originally Posted by GeoffWessex

Yep, OK Karen...... I see the distinction you're making...... 'photographic art in colour', not just 'photography in colour' - fair enough. I think I've said too much already.... I don't want to fall out with anybody.

You'll enjoy this video about him.

Oh Geoff, I hope you don't think I was falling out with you :-) I would never fall out over art or photography. Thanks for the video btw :-)

Karen