UC Riverside

This thesis will examine the history of color photography in America, with specific attention to the exhibition and review of color photography across the country in the 1970s. The first chapter looks at recent exhibitions and texts on the topic, identifying their common shortcoming as the focus on the exhibition and review of color photography in New York City in the 1970s, and the use of New York exhibition and review of color photo as a stand-in for understandings of color photography throughout America. Through case a series of case studies: William Eggleston in New York, William Christenberry in Washington D.C., and John Divola in Los Angeles, this thesis will reevaluates the significance Eggleston’s 1976 MoMA exhibition and offers examples of color’s acceptance and embrace by institutions and critics outside the New York context.