the road to the White house

William Eggleston The road to the White House

Photographer’s road trip pays homage to the hometown of a future president

It’s exactly 44 years since photographer William Eggleston took a fateful road trip from Memphis to the small town of Plains, the Georgia home of Jimmy Carter who would, a month later, in November 1966, become the 39th President of the United States.

In sharp contrast to the insane aggression of the current election campaign that culminates (we hope) early this month, depending on Donald Trump’s acceptance of the ballot results, Eggleston’s photos of lonesome roads, train tracks, cars, gas stations and houses show an air of Southern tranquility.

The images – contained in the re-release of his book Election Eve by German publisher Steidl –

facing Page: sumter. above: Mississippi. Below: sumter.

“… a portrait of Plains as it will never be again, as even its residents may no longer be able to see it”

above: sumter. Below: Mississippi.

are mostly empty of people and form an intuitive, if unsettling, portrait of Plains, that is starkly different to the idealised image promoted by the media after carteer’s election victory.

Born in Memphis in 1939, Eggleston is regarded as one of the greatest photographers of his generation and a major American artist who has fundamentally changed how the urban landscape is viewed.

The original version of Election Eve, published in 1987, was his first and most elaborate artist’s book, containing 100 original prints in two leatherbound volumes housed in a linen box. It was published by Caldecot Chubb in

above: Bank parking lot, Plains.

New York in an edition of only five copies, and has since become Eggleston’s rarest collectible book.

This new edition recreates the original sequence of photos in a single volume, making it available to the wider public for the first time.

In the book’s preface, Lloyd Fonville explains how Eggleston “began taking photographs for his ‘Plains Essay’ even before he left his home in Memphis. And when he got to Sumter County, Georgia, he circled its most famous city warily, photographing the outlying countryside and

the nearby fields and villages. His reluctance to zero in too hastily on Carter’s home town was an indication, partly, of his purpose in making this series of images.

“He wanted to record Plains in the true context of its life as a Southern town: as a tiny waystation on roads leading to other, more vital places … as the hub of a very small agricultural wheel.

“Eggleston has given us a portrait of Plains as it will never be again, as even its residents may no longer be able to see it. Plains is now a juncture of history, an attraction, a symbol.” – TS

eleCTion eve

William eggleston

Published by steidl www.steidl.com us$80 / Canada $115