Finding aid for the Eadweard Muybridge photographs LSC.1979
Finding aid prepared by Sukey Garcetti, June 2012
UCLA Library Special Collections
Online finding aid last updated 2021 August 24.
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Eadweard Muybridge photographs
Creator:
Muybridge, Eadweard
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.1979
Physical Description:
4 linear feet
(4 oversize flat boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1872, 1875-1876
Abstract: Eadweard Muybridge was a British photographer who spent much of his working life living in California and travelling in other
parts of the U.S. and western Northern America. The collection consists of 46 albumen prints. Thirty-nine were taken by Muybridge
in 1872 of Yosemite Valley, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the Mariposa Grove; seven photos were taken in Central America
in 1875-1876.
Physical Location: Held at UCLA Library Special Collections. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access
special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Central American photos were purchased from H. L. Hoffenberg, art dealer, New York City in January, 1984.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9982939183606533
[Identification of item], Eadweard Muybridge Photographs (Collection 1979). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Processed by Sukey Garcetti in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT) with assistance from Jillian Cuellar,
June, 2012.
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Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston-upon-Thames, England, April 9, 1830, Eadweard Muybridge came to the U.S. in the summer
of 1850 and opened a bookstore in San Francisco in 1955. After being seriously injured in a fall from a stagecoach, he returned
to England, where he turned to photography. He came back to San Francisco in 1866 and did photographic work for the U.S. coast
and Geodetic Survey.
Muybridge achieved great fame through his photographic studies of animal and human locomotion. His studies began in 1872 when
he was hired by railroad magnate Leland Stanford to prove that all four hooves of a horse left the ground during a trot. In
the course of these studies, he invented devices to trip the shutters of a series of cameras to record animals in motion.
He later developed a viewer called the zoopraxiscope, which allowed runs of motion photographs to be seen as if moving. These
projects are now considered the forerunners of modern motion pictures.
Muybridge was known for the wide variety of photos he took of scenes in California and western North America. These included
stereo views of Alaska, Canada, California cities, Yosemite Valley, Mexico, and Central America. He gained notoriety in 1874
when he murdered his wife's lover and was acquitted of the crime in a much publicized trial.
Born Edward James Muggeridge, he changed his name several times early in his U.S. career. First he changed his forenames to
the Spanish equivalent Eduado Santiago. His surname appears at times as Muggridge and Muygridge, possibly due to misspellings,
and Muybridge from the 1860's on. In the 1870's, he changed his first name to Eadweard, to match the spelling of King Edward,
as shown on the plinth of the Kingston coronation stone. His name remained Eadweard Muybridge for the rest of his career,
although his gravestone bears a further variant, Eadweard Maybridge. In the 1860's and 1870's, he also used the pseudonym
Helios (Greek god of the sun), to sign many of his photographs. Helios was also the name of his studio, as well as the middle
name of his only son, Florado Muybridge, born in 1874. Muybridge died in Kingston-upon-Thames on May 8, 1904.
The collection is an incomplete set (39 of 51) of mammoth plate sepia albumen prints taken by Muybridge in 1872 and published
in subsequent years by Bradley & Rulofson, 429 Montgomery Street, San Francisco. Thirty-four of the scenes are of the Yosemite
Valley, four are of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and one is of the Mariposa Grove of mammoth trees. The Yosemite set is made
up of prints made directly from his glass plate negatives and is mounted on cardboard; the prints are numbered by the photographer.
There are also seven photos taken in Central America in 1875-1876.
Arranged in the following series:
- Yosemite photos, 1872
- Central American photos, 1875-1876
In
Collection #2050 Stereoscopic Views , there are five stereoscopic views of State Prison at San Quentin (#1603), Piute Chief's Lodge (#1574, from The Indians of
California Series), and three photos of the State Asylum for the Dear and Dumb and Blind; Berkeley (Looking East #1767, West
Front #1768, Pupils in the Chapel #1772 from the California Series).
Related Items Available Online
Related material to this collection has been digitized and is available online:
Yosemite photographs by Muybridge (TR16.8 .M987y) .
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Yosemite Valley (Calif.) -- Photographs.
Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.) -- Photographs.
Central America -- Photographs.
albumen prints
Series 1: Yosemite
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 1
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 2
box 3
box 3
box 3
box 3
box 3
box 3
box 3
Series 2: Central America
box 4
box 4
box 4
box 4
box 4
box 4