William Eggleston: Portraits

Interesting exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of photographs of people by William Eggleston.

Eggleston was not a portraitist but people are central to his work picturing family, friends and strangers doing everyday tasks. A number of pictures came from a series called Nightclub portraits in 1973. These were lovely studies of people in clubs and leaving them.

I loved a picture of an older lady with a fairground elephant, something ordinary about it yet unexplained. However I think my favourite was the one of an old lady in a patterned dress, sitting on an orange floral worn out sofa with her feet in fallen leaves. Despite the fact Eggleston warned people against looking for meaning in his pictures this one seemed to have layers of references time passing. 

Closes on 23 October 2016.

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