At David Zwirner (Chelsea location), The Last Dyes explores William Eggleston’s last analogue run of photographs from the 1970s. There’s something incredibly dreamy about these photographs. William Eggleston’s film prints take you back in time. Largely photographs of the south, these film photographs from Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, draw you into the sprawling metropolis that is the American South. These photos are dye transfers and should be seen in person, because the vibrance, contrast and saturation of Eggleston’s photos are sumptuous.
These film images featured in Zwirner’s The Last Dyes are his photographs of the south in the 1970s, printed in analogue.
His photos of people and places are simple, they tell a story, and most certainly have a focus. My particular favorite from this show is this scattered freezer in 1973. It has frozen taters, vanilla ice milk and everything all laid about. It is incredibly personal and yet – chaotic, as American life has changed so much in the past fifty years – this image shows us how similarly we lived to Americans fifty years ago. It’s this chaotic stacking and frosty interior that feels frozen in time. These images are humble, unpolished displays of American life originally taken in Memphis
Untitled (Southern store sunset) could be taken on any American highway today. It’s this general store with wires overhead and this beautiful sunset next to the general store taken in Arkansas. There is the strong feeling of perspective with Eggleston’s photos, each image is framed to draw the viewer, the general store on the left and trees on the right leading the viewing into the ever expanding road behind.
The Last Dyes are a strong collection, because they feel built for an American lifestyle rather than a moment. The images are in homes, garages, cars, parking lots and the dinner table. You see what he does and it feels intimate and lived in, which is a rarity in this era photos are less and less precious. This country has changed so vastly in the last fifty years, but your freezer may be just as packed after all. These photos feel honest and studied, even though they are aged.
William Eggleston,The Last Dyes, January 15th—March 7,th 2026, David Zwirner, New York: 19th Street
About the artist
Over nearly six decades, William Eggleston (b. 1939) has forged one of photography’s most distinctive visual languages — elevating the overlooked details of everyday American life through a razor-sharp sensitivity to colour, form and composition. His images turn parking lots, interiors, signage and suburban fragments into quietly charged pictures that resist fixed meaning while feeling uncannily precise.
His landmark 1976 solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York — curated by John Szarkowski — was among the first major museum shows devoted to colour photography. Initially controversial, it is now widely regarded as a turning point, cementing colour photography’s place within the art canon and establishing Eggleston as one of its defining figures. The accompanying publication, William Eggleston’s Guide, has since become a touchstone of photographic history.
Born in Memphis, Tennessee — where he still lives — and raised in Sumner, Mississippi, Eggleston studied at Vanderbilt University, Delta State College and the University of Mississippi. His practice remains deeply rooted in the American South, though its influence extends across contemporary visual culture, from photography and cinema to advertising and fashion.
Eggleston joined David Zwirner in 2016, launching a series of major gallery exhibitions including The Democratic Forest, 2 1/4, The Outlands and The Last Dyes, with presentations in New York, London, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Alongside these shows, his work continues to circulate widely through institutional exhibitions worldwide.
Since the 1970s, Eggleston has been the subject of major museum surveys across Europe and the United States, including exhibitions at the Barbican, Museum Ludwig, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Fondation Cartier, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Foam Amsterdam and C/O Berlin. His photographs are held in leading public collections internationally.
Honours include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1975), the International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement (2004) and the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Republic (2016).
The Eggleston Artistic Trust, founded in 1992 and directed by his sons Winston Eggleston and William Eggleston III, oversees the preservation and representation of his work. In 2019, the Eggleston Art Foundation opened in Memphis, housing the artist’s archive and supporting ongoing research into his life and practice.
