When I was a little girl, one of my favorite books in our house was this gigantic collection of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge. I used to scan my eyes across each page really fast, left to right, trying to form movies in my head out of the sequential rows of stop-action stills. The horse ones were my supernumberonefavorite; the naked baseball guy was also neat. So, anyway, there’s a new biography out about Muybridge by Rebecca Solnit called River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (Viking Press, 2003). It explores his relationship with California, examining his experiments in film and their importance in shaping the future of this state as the seat of entertainment and technology.
If you’re in LA, or passing through — Michael Dawson Gallery is launching an exhibit of Muybridge’s photos that runs through November 8. They’re also hosting an evening with Solnit on Tuesday, October 14.
“Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was born and died in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England, but spent much of his working life as a professional photographer in America. He arrived in San Francisco from his native England in 1855. After working for a time as a bookseller, Muybridge began his career as a photographer, calling himself ‘Helios’ – the name of the ancient sun-god (…) By the late 1870’s Muybridge was deeply involved in his study of human and animal movement and developed innovative techniques for producing sequential photographs. Employed by Leland Stanford to answer the question of whether all four legs of a trotting horse were ever aloft simultaneously, Muybridge became THE pioneer photographer of the moving image. His extensive studies and inventions were acknowledged by E. J. Marey, the Lumiere brothers, Thomas Edison and other innovators of the motion picture.”
Link to more info on the show, Link to online gallery of some of the images in the show, Link to more info on the book.