Eadweard
Muybridge
(April
9,
1830
–
May
8,
1904)
was
an
English-born
pioneer
in
photographing
motion
and
in
motion-picture
projection.
An
eccentric
man
who
used
several
aliases—Helios,
The
Flying
Studio;
several
variants
of
his
birth
name,
Edward
Muggeridge—he
first
received
worldwide
acclaim
with
his
landscape
photographs
of
Yosemite
Valley,
which
he
developed
from
large
negatives
in
a
mule-driven
darkroom.
Muybridge
is
most
remembered
for
his
contributions
to
the
understanding
of
human
and
animal
locomotion.
In
1872,
he
was
hired
by
railroad
magnate
Leland
Stanford
to
find
the
answer
to
a
popular
question
of
the
time:
whether
or
not
all
four... Read More
of
a
horse’s
hooves
leave
the
ground
during
a
gallop.
Muybridge
determined
the
answer
by
utilizing
a
series
of
large
cameras.
He
repeated
this
practice
of
stop-motion
photography
with
other
animals
and
people,
in
effect
preceding
motion
pictures
and
modern
cinema.
Muybridge
bequeathed
his
equipment,
including
his
Zoopraxiscope
projector,
to
the
Kingston
Museum
in
Kingston
upon
Thames,
in
southwest
London.
His
works
are
part
of
the
collections
of
such
major
institutions
as
the
Smithsonian.
Additionally,
a
large
collection
of
his
photographs
and
correspondence
are
in
the
archives
at
the
University
of
Pennsylvania.
A
major
exhibition
of
his
works,
entitled
Helios:
Eadweard
Muybridge
in
a
Time
of
Change,
was
held
in
2010
at
the
Corcoran
Gallery
of
Art
in
Washington,
D.C.,
and
at
the
Tate
Britain
in
Millbank,
London.
The
exhibition
then
went
to
the
San
Francisco
Museum
of
Modern
Art
from
February
26
through
June
7,
2011.
His
artistic
legacy
influenced
such
artists
as
Marcel
Duchamp
and
Francis
Bacon,
while
many
of
his
photographic
sequences
have
inspired
cartoonists
and
filmmakers—Muybridge
is
referred
to
as
the
Father
of
the
Motion
Picture.
Muybridge’s
personal
life
was
also
fodder
for
original
works
by
poets,
composers
and
playwrights.