The Violent Story behind Muybridge’s San Francisco Panorama

Muybridge’s 1878 San Francisco Panorama shows us a cityscape long since lost to time. But how ‘panoramic’ was it really? What does this picture hide? 150 years ago, these same streets witnessed both a disastrous marriage and the unstoppable love of two seductive orphans, a combination that would lead to stone cold murder. Remarkably, Muybridge himself was the killer. And there would be no justice for his victim, an outcome with implications for the history of photography, and more.

Author Rebecca Gowers will explain how she came to discover that the mysterious conman executed by Muybridge, with a bullet to the heart, was in fact a member of her own family. She will outline the challenge of gathering new evidence in the case, and discuss how, after a century and a half, it has at last been possible to reveal the truth of this desperate story.

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