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Lot Essay
In the mid to late 1980s, Eggleston began taking a series of color photographs of England which he refers to as English Rose. Gifted from the artist to a local Memphis friend, this selection of prints represents the only photographs from this series to appear at auction, and is considered the only group of its kind in existence today.
The absence of a human presence and the sheer innocence captured in the flowers recall his signature style, while also revealing a Romantic sensibility. As he expressed, 'The Englishness is crystallized in the rose, though I would like to photograph all the flowers. The English understand and need gardens....About five years ago, I rediscovered Max Reinhardt's film of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which, although it was dark, reminded me that England was a garden.' (Eggleston, Ancient and Modern, p. 154).
The absence of a human presence and the sheer innocence captured in the flowers recall his signature style, while also revealing a Romantic sensibility. As he expressed, 'The Englishness is crystallized in the rose, though I would like to photograph all the flowers. The English understand and need gardens....About five years ago, I rediscovered Max Reinhardt's film of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which, although it was dark, reminded me that England was a garden.' (Eggleston, Ancient and Modern, p. 154).