
Memphis (supermarket boy with carts)
"Memphis (supermarket boy with carts)" captures Eggleston's signature approach to color photography, presenting an everyday scene of a young boy among shopping carts with the same compositional rigor and chromatic intensity he brings to ordinary American subjects. The dye transfer print process, which Eggleston championed throughout his career, renders the image with luminous, saturated colors that elevate the mundane moment into something visually arresting and contemplative. Though printed in 2015, the work reflects Eggleston's decades long investigation of how color, framing, and subject matter combine to reveal the aesthetic potential inherent in overlooked slices of contemporary life.
- Medium
- Dye transfer print, printed 2015.
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli
March 18, 2025
Lot 11
More by William Eggleston
Artists in conversation

Stephen Shore
American · b. 1947

Shore shares Eggleston's fascination with ordinary American life captured through saturated color photography, elevating mundane suburban and commercial spaces into visually compelling documentary images with the same snapshot aesthetic and chromatic intensity seen in this supermarket scene.

Joel Sternfeld
American · b. 1944

Sternfeld similarly employs large format color photography to document everyday American scenes with rich saturated color and a contemplative quality, finding unexpected depth and visual power in commonplace moments of American life much like this image of a boy among shopping carts.

Alec Soth
American · b. 1969

Soth works in the same tradition of Southern and American documentary color photography, capturing solitary figures in everyday environments with a melancholic and poetic sensibility that closely echoes the mood and compositional rigor Eggleston brings to this quiet scene of ordinary American childhood.
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