Eggleston v. Shore

William Eggleston, "Memphis" (1971-74)

Who’s better – William Eggleston or Stephen Shore? Now is the perfect time to compare them. Both currently have shows in Manhattan – “William Eggleston: Los Alamos,” at the Metropolitan Museum; “Stephen Shore,” at the Museum of Modern Art. Both are in their seventies (Eggleston was born in 1939; Shore in 1947). Both photograph in color. Both have an eye for what Peter Schjeldahl calls “epiphanies in the every day” (“Local Color,” The New Yorker, November 17, 2008). 

Eggleston and Shore are often associated with each other. Geoff Dyer, in his The Ongoing Moment (2005), says, “It’s quite possible that some of my favourite Shores were taken by Eggleston, and vice versa.” Schjeldahl, in his “Looking Easy” (The New Yorker, December 8, 2017), writes, 

The closest to Shore, in a cohort that includes Joel Meyerowitz, Joel Sternfeld, and Richard Misrach, is his friend William Eggleston, the raffish Southern aristocrat who has made pictures unbeatably intense and iconic: epiphanies triggered by the hues and textures of a stranded tricycle, say, or of a faded billboard in a scrubby field.

Let’s compare some of their photos. Here’s Eggleston’s luminous Memphis (1965):

What strikes me about this picture is the ravishing rose gold light on the young man’s arms, face, and ducktail-combed hair. For me, light is one of photography’s defining essences. Eggleston’s Memphis glows. Is there anything in Shore’s oeuvre that matches its intensity? I don’t think so, unless it’s his gorgeous Graig Nettles, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, March 1, 1978: 

The mesh of the batting cage makes the sky seem tent-like. The natural Florida light is beautiful. But it lacks the burnished quality of Eggleston’s Memphis. 

Eggleston and Shore are both master colorists. Consider Eggleston’s Memphis (1971-74):

This is one of my favorite Egglestons. What draws me to it is the rich lipstick red of the car’s upholstery. Is there an equivalent in Shore’s work? No, but the candy apple red in his 2^nd Street, Ashland, Wisconsin, July 9, 1973 has its own attraction:

I love the neon reflection on the engine bonnet of the car in the foreground – one of those everyday epiphanies that are a hallmark of Shore’s photos. 

Schjeldahl distinguishes between these two greats on the basis of receptivity. In his “Looking Easy,” The New Yorker, December 11, 2017, he writes, 

While similarly alert to offbeat sublimities, Shore is a New Yorker more receptive than marauding in attitude. I fancy that Eggleston is the cavalier Mephistopheles of American color photography, and Shore the discreet angel Gabriel.

It’s an interesting distinction. I relish the idea of photographs as acts of “alertness to offbeat sublimities.” D. H. Lawrence said, “The essential quality of poetry is that it makes a new effort of attention and ‘discovers’ a new world within the known world” (Preface to Harry Crosby’s Chariot of the Sun, 1936). I think this is true of photography, too. 

Schjeldahl appears to prefer Shore over Eggleston. He calls him “my favorite American photographer of the past half century.” I’m partial to Eggleston, based on his superb capture of light and color. Implicit in the work of both is an intense effort of attention.