Plate Number 363. Running somersault
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 26.3 × 27.2 cm (10 3/8 × 10 11/16 in.) sheet: 48.4 × 61.3 cm (19 1/16 × 24 1/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, 1887)
Accession Number
2014.79.385
Art Historical Context
Behold *Plate Number 363. Running Somersault*, a captivating collotype print from Eadweard Muybridge's seminal *Animal Locomotion* series, created in 1887. Muybridge, a pioneering British-American photographer, captured this dynamic sequence of an acrobat mid-air, performing a running somersault. The image measures 26.3 × 27.2 cm, reproduced on a larger 48.4 × 61.3 cm sheet, showcasing the fluid progression of motion across multiple frames. This work exemplifies Muybridge's revolutionary chronophotography technique, using multiple cameras triggered in rapid succession to "freeze" movement, de...
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...