February 20, 2026
You're invited to join The Trout Gallery for an opening reception for the Eadward Muybridge: Senior Art History Exhibition.
Eadweard Muybridge, Plate 627 from "Animal Locomotion," collotype, 13.75 x 19.375 in., 1887, The Trout Gallery, Gift of Samuel Moyerman, 1987.4.76
This exhibition is curated by the students in Dickinson's Senior Art History Seminar, under the direction of Professor of Art Hstory Elizabeth Lee.
Eadweard Muybridge is best known for his first-of-its-kind scientific study, Animal Locomotion, which used photography in a new way. In sequential series of still photographs, Muybridge explored the actions of bodies, animal and human, in motion. As archivist J.J. Ahearn has noted, “You could start seeing the human body in motion. Up to then, you have to see somebody doing it in person, and you can’t have somebody stop mid-pole vault to see where the muscles are.” Muybridge’s legacy is also connected to how people think about time. “There’s so many innovations in image-making that changed the way that we see and visualize things. Einstein, when he talks about relativity, describes perceiving time in the form of slices as a way of comparing things from different perspectives,” says art historian Gregory Vershbow. “That metaphor for thinking about time is at least in part informed by those images. Photography has made us much more aware of the past as broken up into moments, just like the present is.”
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Further information
- Location: Weiss Lobby, The Trout Gallery
- Time: 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
- Cost: Free