Eadweard Muybridge

Capybara Walking, 1887

Collotype

24.5 x 29.5 in.

Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery

Retail Value: $750

Eadweard Muybridge was born in 1830 in England. In the mid-1860s, he ventured to Yosemite Valley and made a series of photographs and stereoscopic slides which met favorable reviews. His technical achievement earned him enough attention to be appointed the Director of Photographic Surveys for the United States government, a job that sent him to unmapped western territories of Montana, Wyoming and the recent acquisition of Alaska. Muybridge is best known for his action pictures of human and animal locomotion. Supposedly prompted by a wager concerning a horse’s gait made by ex-California governor Leland Stanford, Eadweard Muybridge made a study of a galloping horse in 1872 with fair results. His continuing work with models in motion eventually led to his invention of the “zoopraxiscope,” a moving picture machine that showed a rapid succession of images. His motion studies are considered to be a critical step in the evolution of photography to motion pictures.