Plate Number 345. Wrestling, lock
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 17.4 × 44.3 cm (6 7/8 × 17 7/16 in.) sheet: 47.7 × 60.3 cm (18 3/4 × 23 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, 1887)
Accession Number
2014.79.369
Art Historical Context
Eadweard Muybridge's *Plate Number 345., lock* (1887) is a captivating entry from his groundbreaking *Animal Locomotion* series, which meticulously documented human and animal movement through sequential photography. Captured at the University of Pennsylvania, this collotype print—measuring 17.4 × 44.3 cm—freezes a dynamic wrestling maneuver in multiple frames, revealing the subtle shifts of two nude male figures locked in a tense grapple. Muybridge, a British-born innovator, transformed photography into a scientific tool after proving in 1872 that horses briefly "fly" during a gallop, paving ...
About the Artist
Eadweard Muybridge · 1830–1904
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was an English-American photographer who revolutionized the understanding of motion through his pioneering chronophotographic studies. Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames, England, he emigrated to America and became famous first for his dramatic landscape photographs of Yosemite Valley, then for his groundbreaking motion studies that proved horses li...