William Eggleston (born 1939); Untitled (Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee - Pool Room with Toulouse...

William Eggleston (born 1939) Untitled (Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee - Pool Room with Toulouse-Lautrec Poster), 1983 Chromogenic dye coupler print; signed in ink in the margin, framed, a Jackson Fine Art label on the reverse. 12 x 8 1/8 in. (30.5 x 20.6 cm.) sheet 14 x 11 in. (35.5 x 27.9 cm.) Footnotes: Provenance Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta Note In 1983, not one year after the doors of Graceland were opened to the public, William Eggleston was invited by the Estate of Elvis Presley to walk its hallowed halls and make a collection of images documenting the home's eccentric interior for use in future publication materials. Presley's death in 1977 saw the home shuttered, and in the ensuing 5 years, the Estate had been carefully recalibrating and reorganizing in an effort to open the home to tour groups and visitors, which they did in 1982. As a Memphis native, Eggleston was profoundly influenced by the local music scene, visualized in the myriad references to musical culture and iconography that appear throughout his photographs documenting the American south. In highlighting wall segments, room corners, and pieces of furniture at Graceland, Eggleston sought to disorient the viewer by removing any unnecessary context. In the singer's home, Eggleston focused his lens on the elements that encapsulated the lifestyle for which Presley was so well known, while offering little clarification as to the past his space inhabitant of this space. Regarded as one of the forebears of color photography, Eggleston was an auspicious choice to capture Graceland. Working almost exclusively at night, he was given run of the house, slowly wending his way through the acres of shag carpeting and mirrored architecture. The lack of sunlight – a byproduct of the heavy curtains and obstructed windows - required Eggleston to light his workspaces artificially, leaving little to the imagination. The present image, taken in Graceland's Pool Room, displays an upholstered sofa, a glass end-table with floor-length tablecloth, and wall-to-wall curtains, all boasting the same riotously loud, colorful block print. The end-table, brimming with decorative objects, features a pearlescent lamp and a vase of bright yellow lilies, whose color threatens to rival the boldness of the surrounding fabric. A framed poster of a Henri Toulouse-Lautrec image looks on. 'As a rule, my pictures fall all to pieces in black-and-white,' Eggleston remarked in a 1983 interview with The Washington Post. 'They've always done that. A good color picture, when all its colors are gone, shouldn't really have anything; otherwise there's no reason for the color.' In 1984, Eggleston produced William Eggleston's Graceland, a portfolio of 11 dye transfer prints that include an alternate view of the Pool Room. Eggleston likely made this print around the same time, evidencing his fondness for this particular room. So rare are variant images among Eggleston's oeuvre that the photographer himself has spoken of their scarcity. 'I only ever take one picture of one thing. Literally. Never two,' he remarked during a 2004 interview. He further explained, 'So then that picture is taken and then the next one is waiting somewhere else.' Here we are given a rare glimpse at one of Eggleston's exceedingly rare variant shots. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing