Wayne Bremser has a fascinating tumblr post about William Eggleston’s use of slideshows to exhibit his color photography before he figured out a successful way to print it. Eggleston has been generally credited, along with Stephen Shore, of bringing color photography into the fine art world. But Bremser also gives an important shoutout to Helen Levitt, who was showing her color photos of NYC two years earlier at MoMA—as a slideshow.
The impetus was a show at David Zwirner LA of Eggleston’s “Last Dyes,” the vintage prints using a long-discontinued dye transfer process. Dye Transfer is a whole journey in itself; for me the culminating color achievement of the dwindling print technology was early Liz Deschenes’ monochrome photos. I have not seen a Liz Deschenes slideshow.
Eggleston’s Slideshows [bremser.tumblr.com]
Previously, related: Apparently, Bill Levitt’s Sister Was Something of A Photographer