The frontispiece to this biographical study is an unknown photographer's portrait of the bearded Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) taken in about 1872. He sits awkwardly hunched on a crate with his back against a sequoia, grimly frowning into the distance, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a rumpled three-piece suit. His ragged trouser hems are prominent in the foreground, along with his muddy wrinkled boots. He looks the image of a rebel, an uneasy outsider, perhaps mad, bad and dangerous to know, perhaps a genius, certainly a vexed spirit.

LRB 24 July 2003 | PDF Download