Muybridge, Eadweard. Eadweard Muybridge 55 by Paul Hill.

Phaidon, 2001.  Stiff wraps, 128 pages. Includes essay, informative captions, and chronology. Muybridge's photos include landscapes, American Indians, San Francisco, his Animal Locomotion series, and others, including, surprisingly, one taken in Atlantic City, New Jersey. One of the Series 55 books on different photographers.  Like new with "Phaidon Non-Mint Copy" stamped on title page and may have remainder mark at bottom of text block.  This stamp does not necessarily signify any defects when found in a Phaidon book and this copy doesn't have any.  Summary:

Eadweard Muybridge (2001), part of the Phaidon 55 series by Paul Hill, is a compact yet authoritative survey of the 19th-century visionary who "stopped time." The book distills Muybridge’s complex, often scandalous life and his monumental contributions to both photography and the precursors of cinema into 55 key images.

Core Themes and Content

• The Pioneer of Motion: The book focuses heavily on Muybridge’s groundbreaking work at Palo Alto (commissioned by Leland Stanford), where he used a battery of 24 cameras triggered by tripwires to prove that a galloping horse at one point has all four hooves off the ground.

• Animal Locomotion: Hill explores the massive "scientific atlas" Muybridge produced at the University of Pennsylvania, featuring over 700 plates of humans and animals in motion. This work bridged the gap between fine art and forensic science.

• The Landscape Roots: Before he was the "Man of Motion," Muybridge was "Helios," a celebrated landscape photographer. The book includes his dramatic, large-format views of Yosemite and his 360-degree panorama of San Francisco, showcasing his mastery of early wet-plate negative processing.

Visual and Technical Significance

• The Grid Aesthetic: Hill highlights how Muybridge’s sequential grids prefigured modern conceptual art and the "chronophotography" that led directly to the invention of the motion picture.

• Technical Mastery: Despite the primitive nature of 1870s chemistry, Muybridge developed high-speed shutters and electromagnetic triggers—patented inventions that allowed for exposure times as fast as $1/1000$ of a second.