1995 Harold Edgerton; James Danziger Gallery, New York,
New York
1997 Seeing the Unseen: Dr. Harold E. Edgerton and the
Wonders of Strobe Alley; University of California River-
side, Riverside, California Museum of Photography, and
traveling to Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach,
Florida
1998 Flashes of Inspiration: The Work of Harold Edgerton;
MIT Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2001 Harold Edgerton: Faster than a Speeding Bullet (Stu-
dies in Motion); Jane Corkin Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2002 Harold Edgerton: Seeing the Unseen; MIT Museum,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and traveling
Further Reading
Bruce, Roger.Seeing the Unseen: Dr. Harold Edgerton and
the Wonders of Strobe Alley. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1998.
Edgerton, Harold E., and James R. Killian, Jr.Flash! See-
ing the Unseen by Ultra High-Speed Photograph. Boston:
Hale, Cushman & Flint, 1939; 2d ed. Boston: Charles T
Branford, 1954.
Edgerton, Harold E.Electronic Flash, Strobe. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1970; 2d ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1979.
Edgerton, Harold.Sonar Images. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1986.
Kayafas, Gus, ed. Foreward by Harold Edgerton.Stopping
Time: The Photographs of Harold Edgerton. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1987.
Killian, James R. Jr.Moments of Vision: The Stroboscopic
Revolution in Photography by Harold E. Edgerton. Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979.
Sheldon, James.Exploring the Art and Science of Stopping
Time, A CD-ROM based on the Life and Work of Harold
Edgerton. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.WILLIAM EGGLESTON
American
Often called the ‘‘father of color photography,’’
William Eggleston is credited with helping establish
the basic lexicon of contemporary color photogra-
phy as art. One of several artists to begin working
with color photography in the late 1960s, he was
the first of this group to have a major museum
exhibition of his color work,Photographs by Wil-
liam Eggleston, which was held at the Museum of
Modern Art (MoMA), New York, in 1976. Eggle-
ston’s subject matter is ordinary life, often pre-
sented in simple, centrally organized compositions
in a style much like casual snaphots. The similari-
ties of his work to vernacular photography were
not lost on his critics, who decried his work follow-
ing the 1976 exhibition. Nevertheless, Eggleston
very quickly became renowned for his deft use of
color as an integral element of composition, as well
as his unusual perspectives and uncanny ability to
monumentalize the minutiae of mundane life.
Eggleston was born in Memphis, Tennessee in
- He grew up on a former cotton plantation in
Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. At the age of 10, he
first toyed with photography using a Brownie Haw-
keye. The following year, his father died, leaving his
grandfather, a hobbyist photographer, a prominent
role in Eggleston’s life. As a student at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1957, Eggle-
ston bought a Canon rangefinder and began to
experiment with photography. After leaving Vander-
bilt, he attended Delta State College in Cleveland,
Mississippi, and the University of Mississippi, Ox-
ford. During this time, he studied photography inde-
pendently, seeking out published resources.
Eggleston became an independent photographer
in 1962, after the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, a
Magnum photographer, first caught his attention.
The painterly quality of Cartier-Bresson’s photo-
graphs, which bore clear evidence of the influence
of artists such as Edgar Degas and Henri de Tou-
louse-Lautrec, appealed to Eggleston’s personal
interest in painting theory. The unusual perspec-
tives, so different from the direct, head-on view-
point typical of photography prior to the 1960s,
gave Eggleston new insight into the creative possi-
bilities of photography.
In 1965, Eggleston began experimenting with
color photography. He was working exclusively
in color by 1966, when color photography was
not yet considered a legitimate art form; prior to
1970 color was accepted only for amateur and
commercial photography. The 1959 proclamation
of revered American photographer Walker Evans,
‘‘Color-photography is vulgar,’’ reflected a persis-
tent, widespread perception of color photographyEDGERTON, HAROLD