Eadweard Muybridge
Animal Locomotion, Pronto with Rider, 1887
photogravure
© Public Domain / Courtesy Kicken Berlin
Biography
British-born Eadweard Muybridge (formerly Edward James Muggeridge) only came to photography late in his life. He immigrated to the United States as a young man and moved to San Francisco, California soon after he arrived. In 1867 he established a business with commercial photography, and founded a studio under the name Helios. He produced thousands of stereoscopic images of the city of San Francisco, and was celebrated for his outstanding photographic compositions of the Yosemite Valley. Already in 1872 Muybridge started to experiment with photographic studies in motion, proving that horses lift all of their hooves at once during their gallop. In the following years he improved his camera technology and shutter speed, and in 1880 Muybridge published his results in the book Attitudes of Animals in Motion. His photographic studies became world famous and influenced artists like Edgar Degas, Marcel Duchamp or Francis Bacon throughout the following 20th century.
