He was Edward Muggeridge and 22 years old when he left England for America, Eadweard Muybridge when he returned 40 years later. He was English, born in Kingston upon Thames in 1830. He died there in 1904. But it was California that made him a photographer. The largest item in the exhibition of his work at Tate Britain (until 16 January) is a mighty 360º panorama of San Francisco, taken from the tower of the house of one tycoon and looking down on the house of another, Leland Stanford. The houses, large, but crowded together on the slopes of Nob Hill like limpets on a rock, are new, the environment treeless. San Francisco was expanding, a lot of money was being spent, and the results were florid: one of Muybridge's commissions was a series of photographs of the interior of the Stanford mansion: dark rooms, much carved and polished wood and stone, heavy drapes setting off white marble statuary.

Eadweard Muybridge, 'Emptying Bucket of Water, Plate 404' (1887)

LRB 23 September 2010 | PDF Download