Phantom Skies and Shifting Ground: Landscape, Culture, and Rephotography in Eadweard Muybridge's Illustrations of Central AmericaMain MenuProject OverviewAn overview and description of Phantom Skies and Shifting GroundAn Introduction to Eadweard MuybridgeAn Introduction to Eadweard MuybridgeReading MuybridgeA primer on reading Muybridge's picturesField NotesA sample selection from Dr. Brady's field note essaysFinding & Rephotographing MuybridgeA selection of rephotographed sites located on a mapCollecting MuybridgeNotes on the Muybridge Central American albumsBibliographyThe bibliography from Phantom Skies and Shifting GroundByron Wolfe29b5afd50a8948b8f580d8d9bef15030f6d53f98Scott Brady74da0422598ae4d11d5f12e2d4b2465e62c96b82Temple University Press & Digital Scholarship Center / Radius Books
Muybridge's Garden
12016-09-28T17:42:45+00:00Byron Wolfe29b5afd50a8948b8f580d8d9bef15030f6d53f9852plain2017-05-01T18:43:21+00:00Sara Jo Cohend9ed7b6a993f4f9dca2ada59cb09d6d3c05f4a5fIn Byron Wolfe's personal correspondence with Stephen Herbert, director of the Muybridge Museum at Kingston upon Thames in England where Muybridge eventually retired, Herbert wrote: “It seems that (probably after Muybridge died) a quantity of glass material remained in the house, and was buried in the garden. Legend has it that when he died he was constructing a model of the Great Lakes in the garden, so perhaps the material was used to fill the holes.”
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12016-09-28T15:24:27+00:00Collecting Muybridge15Notes on the Muybridge Central American albumsgallery2020-08-21T16:51:02+00:00As of this writing, there are eleven known bound Muybridge albums housed at ten different institutions. In addition, there is one unbound (partial) album, and three small collections of individual pictures, each held at separate institutions.
Only a single album contains every picture from Muybridge’s travels and there’s also only one known “Supplement to Catalogue,” a promotional brochure that Muybridge used to describe and list the photographs and to advertise for print orders. Although unconfirmed, there have been reports of original pictures on display in Venezuela. Regardless of the precise figure for album count, the Central American pictures are exceedingly rare and few people have seen the body of photographs either in part or in whole. The location of Muybridge’s original negatives are unknown, although a few were recovered from his garden.
The albums are most commonly cited as: Muybridge, Eadweard. The Pacific Coast of Central America and Mexico: The Isthmus of Panama; Guatemala; and the Cultivation and Shipment of Coffee. San Francisco, 1876.
List of Archives with Muybridge Albums or with Images from Albums:
Stanford University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, Rare Books Division, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California One album in two volumes, 121 pictures Given to F.E. Johnston, Muybridge’s defense lawyer (described in the print publication as “album A”)
Stanford University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, Rare Books Division, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California One album in one volume, 59 pictures Given to Fran Frank Shay, Stanford’s secretary (described in the print publication as “album B”)
The Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona One album in one volume, 100 pictures Provenance unknown
The California State Library, Rare Materials Reading Room, Sacramento, California One album in one volume, 62 pictures Given to Mrs. Wirt Pendegast, widow of his defense lawyer (Pendegast died while Muybridge was in Central America).
Cornell University, Kroch Library Rare & Manuscripts, Ithaca, New York One album in one volume, 71 pictures First owner was Marshall Howard Saville (1867-1935) an archaeologist and professor at Columbia University. It passed to the Huntington Free Library, then to the Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation, then to Cornell University.
Niagara University Library, Special Collections, New York One album in one volume, 60 pictures Provenance unknown
Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University, The State University of New York Note from Byron: The information that follows is different than what appears in the physical book. At some point in the manuscript writing and editing, a couple of errors were made that endured. What follows is revised and accurate:
One album in four volumes, 264 pictures (the only known complete collection of all images, numbered on each page in a continuous sequence from #4219 - #4482) Provenance unknown – volume one has an inscription in pencil on the inside cover. It notes that it was purchased for $150. A red library stamp has "Sept. 25. 1967" probably noting the library's date of acquisition. In volume two there is a handwritten inscription "To C.E.B. from A.B. 1880."
The Museum of Modern Art, New York One album in one volume, 120 pictures Provenance unknown