Intersections

Nearly 700 photographs from Eadweard Muybridge's groundbreaking publication Animal Locomotion, acquired by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1887, became the foundation for the institution's early interest in photography. The Key Set of more than 1,600 works by Alfred Stieglitz, donated by Georgia O'Keeffe and the Alfred Stieglitz Estate, launched the photography collection at the National Gallery of Art in 1949.

Inspired by these two seminal artists, Muybridge and Stieglitz, the exhibition brings together highlights of the recently merged collections of the Corcoran and the National Gallery of Art by a range of artists from the 1870s to today.

The connections between the two photography collections will be explored through five themes—movement, sequence, narrative, studio, and identity—found in the work of the two founding photographers.

Both of the above-mentioned publications are available. All 781 plates from the 1887 groundbreaking Eadweard Muybridge publication Animal Locomotion are included in Muybridge's Complete Human and Animal Locomotion.  And, while pricey, the  two-volume boxed set of the Stieglitz Collection of Photographs, Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set, is the catalogue of Stieglitz holdings at the National Gallery of Art.