William Eggleston embraced color photography at a time when it was widely considered a commercial medium that was anathema to art, and he most often depicted the mundane details of daily life that were equally disdained in the world of art photography. Nonetheless, he captured the spirit of his native South in pictures with a bold command of color that paved the way for the medium’s acceptance. Eggleston was particularly devoted to the dye imbibition process (commonly called dye-transfer) for its clear and vivid rendition of color and its permanence relative to the more fugitive chromogenic prints typically used for color photography.

Of this picture, often called The Red Ceiling, Eggleston said, “When you look at the dye [transfer print] it is like red blood that’s wet on the wall. . . . A little red is usually enough, but to work with an entire red surface was a challenge.” If the saturated color is disquieting and the very thought of a glossy red room with a bare lightbulb seems a bit seedy, the touches of yellow and blue in the bottom right corner offer no relief: on close inspection they are revealed to be “how-to” diagrams.