Eadweard Muybridge Photographer Pioneer Tate Britain

Eadweard Muybridge

The Photographer Who Proved Horses Could Fly

Eadweard Muybridge (British-born 1830) left the London suburb of Kingston in the middle of the 19th century, to make his name and seek his fortune in the New World. Muybridge is now recognised at home and abroad as one of the most important pioneering photographers of the Victorian age. He emigrated to the United States in the 1850s pushing the limits of new camera technology. He experimented with the possibilities of creating images of animals and humans in motion. This was unexplored territory and like the Wild West beyond the reach of conservative prejudices. His work also explored vast panoramas of American landscapes, such as the Yosemite Valley, and his documentation of the rapidly growing west coast of America, particularly in San Francisco has been an important historic record of the times. Muybridge’s dramatic life included extensive travels in North and Central America, a career as a successful lecturer, and the scandal of his trial for the murder of his wife's lover. READ MORE....