Photograph by Ed Pollard, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II digital slr-2009.

Plate #143-144 from the Series Attitudes of Animals in Motion

Artist Eadweard Muybridge (American, 1830 - 1904)

CultureAmerican

Date1881

MediumAlbumen print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 5 1/2 x 9 in. (14 x 22.9 cm)
Overall, Support: 9 3/4 × 13 in. (24.8 × 33 cm)
Overall, Mat: 14 × 18 in. (35.6 × 45.7 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number86.361

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an albumen print photograph.

Label TextEadweard Muybridge American (b. England, 1830-1904) Plate #143-144 from the series Attitudes Of Animals In Motion, 1881 Albumen print Museum Purchase 86.361 Although Eadweard Muybridge was, during the 1860s, a well-known landscape photographer in California, the bulk of his reputation lies in the thousands of sequential stop-motion images he made in the 1880s. Muybridge's photographs convey information imperceptible to the unaided eye and are the predecessor of motion pictures. He began making the photographs to resolve a wager as to whether or not a running horse lifted all four feet off the ground at the same time. Because the human eye could not discern this, Muybridge, using a series of cameras, made photographs capturing each instant of the horse's progress. The photographs proved that the running horse did in fact have an instant of levitation, but it took place when the feet were under the horse - not when splayed in front and back as had been depicted in paintings. This photographic proof forced artists to change the way they drew running horses. Encouraged by the success of his horse photographs, Muybridge went on to photograph all kinds of animals (including humans) performing various activities. In 1887, his photographs were published in an 11-volume work entitled Animal Locomotion. These sequential photographs were reproduced as collotypes. Three of those sequences are part of the Chrysler collection, including one of a nude Muybridge as the subject. The albumen print on view here was made before Muybridge produced his massive multi-volume work. In 1989, the Chrysler hosted a solo exhibition of Muybridge's Animal Locomotion work. Edited By: GLY Edited Date: 11/07/2003Exhibition History"A History of Photography: 15 Years at the Chrysler Museum," Norfolk, Va., September 11, 1993 - March 6, 1994. "Photographs from the Chrysler Museum," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., February 26 - April 23, 1989. "Silver Images: The Photography Collection at 25," Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., November 5, 2003 - August 2004. "Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change," Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, D.C., April 10 - July 18, 2010; Tate Britain, London, UK, September 13, 2010- January 16, 2011; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, February 26 - June 27, 2011. Published ReferencesPhilip Brookman, _Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change_, exh.cat., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010, 87, fig.75. Philip Brookman, _Eadweard Muybridge_, exh.cat., Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom, 2010, 87, fig. 75.