Authenticity of early Muybridge's photos questioned

[Michael Wong]

In a walk-through of the current landmark exhibition "Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change" in Washington (coming to Tate Britain this September), Getty Museum's distinguished former curator of photographs, Weston Naef, noted some startling observations to lead him to conclude that some early Muybridge photos may not be taken by him.

Instead, Naef suggested they were done by others, whilst Muybridge merely published them. If he is correct, the histories of photography are about to be significantly revised. What other photography historians and curators have to say about the dispute will be very interesting to see.

Read the article here and a Q&A with Naef himself on this very topic can be found here.
So draw your own conclusions ...

[Michael Wong]

Thanks for your comments, Andrew, and glad you managed to make it to the exhibition !
Yes, I did read of a recent article on Muybridge which mentioned "his neglected wife, Flora, and his cold-blooded murder in 1874 of a man he suspected was her lover. He got off scot-free, pleading insanity (he'd suffered a severe brain injury during a stagecoach accident in 1860) and justification for a crime of passion. When Flora died soon afterward, Muybridge placed their young son in an orphanage".
Wondered how he would fare in this day and age ?
This same exhibition will be heading our shores come this September, and I'm sure will open up even more discussions on this amazing, and yet intriguing, early photographer, on this side of the pond !
All the best, Michael

[Andrew J. Currie]

After visiting the Helios exhibit myself and learning about the personality of Mr. Muybridge, this doesn't dound implausible to me. He was known for staging photographs (technically well-made photos) during the Indian wars and passing them off as authentic photos of Indian braves in combat with the US Army; further more he famously murdered his wife's lover and got away with it thanks to a sympathetic jury. You can't confuse genius with character.