Eadweard Muybridge (British-American 1830–1904) was a British-born American photographer whose pioneering work in motion studies helped lay the groundwork for modern cinema. After emigrating to the United States, he became known for his dramatic landscapes of the American West, but it was his innovative use of sequential photography that made history. Commissioned in the 1870s to settle a bet about whether all four hooves of a galloping horse ever left the ground, Muybridge developed a system of timed cameras to capture motion frame by frame - culminating in his landmark series The Horse in Motion.
His work with the University of Pennsylvania produced hundreds of studies of human and animal locomotion, blending art, science, and spectacle in equal measure. With his Zoopraxiscope, an early motion-picture projector, Muybridge gave the world a first glimpse of moving images years before the invention of cinema. Equal parts showman and scientist, he stands at the intersection of Victorian curiosity and modern visual culture
