The Outlands documents Eggleston’s interest in Southern roadsides and structures, whether the shot shows an overgrown, abandoned building or an empty Mississippi drive-in against a stormy sky. “As Dad was working and walking, he was observing the encroaching suburban sprawl of Memphis,” writes William Eggleston III.
William Eggleston, Untitled, c. 1970-1973
© Eggleston Artistic Trust
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
At the funeral of blues musician Mississippi Fred McDowell, a parishioner catches the camera’s focus.
William Eggleston, Untitled, c. 1970-1973
© Eggleston Artistic Trust
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
A high-heeled foot steps out onto a chicken-flecked dirt road in Mississippi.
William Eggleston, Untitled, c. 1970-1973
© Eggleston Artistic Trust
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
Dramatic shadows and leading lines frame a glowing glass of iced tea in a Memphis diner.
William Eggleston, Untitled, c. 1970-1973
© Eggleston Artistic Trust
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
A cherry red float pops against the aqua surface of a pool in Mississippi. Eggleston’s use of color offers a unique specificity to common, simple moments: “You can leave a picture of his and see the world anew,” William Eggleston III writes. “The view takes over. It becomes your world.”
William Eggleston, Untitled, c. 1970-1973
© Eggleston Artistic Trust
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
In Memphis, sunlight catches details on a woman’s fur coat, heeled shoes, and chrome car against the dark, wet parking lot of a liquor store.
William Eggleston, Untitled, c. 1970-1973
© Eggleston Artistic Trust
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
Through rural backroads, Eggleston documented a tension between nature and manmade structures, like in this Memphis shot. The hard lines of a building pierce into the organic forms of fluffy clouds. “In many of the pictures, a responsive balance is struck between the developed yet degraded landscape and the unsullied and ever-changing sky,” the art scholar Robert Slifkin writes in his essay for The Outlands.
William Eggleston, Untitled, c. 1970-1973
© Eggleston Artistic Trust
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
Photo: Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner
Gabriela Gomez-Misserian, Garden & Gun’s digital producer, joined the magazine in 2021 after studying English and studio art in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. She is an oil painter and gardener, often uniting her interests to write about creatives—whether artists, naturalists, designers, or curators—across the South. Gabriela paints and lives in downtown Charleston with her golden retriever rescue, Clementine.
