Capturing Locomotion: A Shut Have a look at Muybridge’s Groundbreaking Photography

Students convey contemporary views to well-known works

by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

The student-curated exhibition Dissecting Locomotion explores Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic research of people and animals in movement and the way they remodeled our understanding of motion.

In the times earlier than motion pictures and movies, folks didn’t have a possibility to know the mechanics of high-speed movement. The legs of a galloping horse had been a blur to the bare eye, and artists usually depicted them like rocking-chair legs—all 4 outstretched without delay. Then got here Eadweard Muybridge. His photographic sequences of galloping horses, birds in flight and other people in movement introduced the mechanics of motion clearly in body.

A brand new exhibition lifts the lid off Muybridge’s contributions to artwork, science and cinema histories. It’s known as Dissecting Locomotion, and it’s curated by three art-history majors in Dickinson’s class of 2026.

Milestone works in a milestone exhibition

Class of ’26 art-history majors Lena Rimmer, Anna Radigan and Abigail Allport researched Muybridge’s work and curated the Trout Gallery exhibition. Photo by Dan Loh.

The exhibition focuses on Muybridge’s well-known undertaking Animal Locomotion, accomplished on the University of Pennsylvania in 1887. Muybridge used a number of cameras and a later-patented method to seize the actions of individuals and animals in a collection of nonetheless pictures. The collection modified the best way we perceive motion and paved the best way for the event of “moving picture” applied sciences.

Although Dickinson owns greater than 100 Animal Locomotion plates, due to a donation from a Philadelphia lawyer, Samuel Moyerman (1893-1966), Dissecting Locomotion is barely the second Trout Gallery exhibition devoted completely to Muybridge’s work. It can also be the primary such exhibition to be curated by college students.

15 weeks to opening evening

The class of 2026’s Abigail Allport, Anna Radigan and Lena Rimmer curated Dissecting Locomotion because the capstone undertaking for his or her senior art-history seminar. Working collectively beneath path of Professor of Art History Elizabeth Lee, and with assist from the Trout Gallery’s director and employees, the scholars chosen the works and designed the exhibition. They additionally wrote and refined unique analysis, which is printed in a full-color exhibition catalogue.

Much of the work was hands-on. To higher perceive the expertise of Muybridge’s day, for instance, the scholars took a plate-camera and darkroom workshop led by Visiting Lecturer Andy Bale. They additionally hung out analyzing bodily objects within the Trout Gallery’s everlasting assortment as they narrowed down the items they might present and researched particular person works.

New views of well-known work

Lee notes that whereas a lot has been written about Muybridge’s work over the many years, the scholars discovered distinctive angles to focus on of their analysis. Allport examined the absence of racial variety within the collection. Radigan related Muybridge’s early-career photographic landscapes to his later work. Rimmer appeared to the Nineteenth-century curiosity in school athletics applications and bodily tradition to clarify the excessive proportion of pictures of athletes within the collection.

A tip from Associate Dean for Archives & Special Collections’ Jim Gerencser ’93 revealed parallels between Muybridge’s contributions and the pictures of Dickinson’s personal Charles Francis Himes, class of 1855, an avid photographer and science professor who augmented his classes with pictures.

The college students will likely be out there to reply questions in the course of the Feb. 20 opening reception for the exhibition. They’ll additionally lead a Feb. 26 Lunch and Learn session about their expertise. It’s a serious second for the student-curators, who put all they’d realized as art-history majors to the check in a single main remaining undertaking.

“We had complete creative control over everything from the exhibition’s overarching themes to the gallery wall color,” says Allport. “I’m grateful to the art department and gallery faculty for their help, and I’m so proud of how the show came together.”

Learn extra about spring 2026 exhibitions at Dickinson.

View extra upcoming public arts occasions.

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Published February 12, 2026