William Eggleston at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 
William Eggleston, the Dean of Southern Photographers, is having a show of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, up now through July 28th, 2013.

The show is called At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston.   

The show features, in the words of the Met's advertising copy, " the artist's iconic photographs of commonplace subjects that have become touchstones for generations of artists, musicians, and filmmakers from Nan Goldin to David Byrne, the Coen Brothers, and David Lynch."

William Eggleston is widely credited with bringing about the color revolution in fine art photography. 

As the Met puts it, again, "Through a profound appreciation of the American vernacular (especially near his home in the Mississippi Delta) and confidence in the dye transfer printmaking process to reveal the region's characteristic qualities of light and saturated chromatics, Eggleston almost single-handedly validated color photography as a legitimate artistic medium."

So, there you have it. Eggleston has now achieved perhaps the highest level of recognition available to a living American artist -- a solo show  at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Not bad for a boy from Mississippi.