He is, after all, a man who has always lived outside of society’s rules—“kind of a blessed rascal” is how Ruscha puts it. He’s been an atheist since the age of five or six (“Not agnostic,” he emphasizes. “Atheist”), has never voted in his life and didn’t pay taxes for years. (The IRS, he says, “couldn’t have been nicer” about that little oversight and happily accepted his plan to write the government a check and put his art in trust.) Weski fondly remembers his first visit to Eggleston in Memphis in 1991: Eggleston woke up at noon, led him on nightly tours of the city’s best music joints—he loves virtually every kind of music except jazz, which he loathes—and turned in at 4 or 5 a.m. “He’s realized over time that he’s not like everybody else,” Weski says, “but it’s very normal to him.” Needless to say, alcohol was part of the adventure. Bourbon, specifically. “I don’t like wine,” Eggleston says. “The Mississippi Delta is not wine-drinking country.
William Eggleston
Once vilified for his color images of humdrum daily life, the enigmatic man who turned art photography on its ear is getting his due.
continued (page 4 of 4)
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- William Eggleston,
- 2008 Art Issue,
- profile
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