DeCordova Collects Photographs: Recent Acquisitions
Harold Edgerton
Although he considered himself primarily a scientist and electrical engineer, Dr. Harold Edgerton has been widely regarded as one of the most important innovators in the history of twentieth-century art photography. Through his work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and as founding partner of the scientific products and services firm EG&G, Inc., Edgerton developed new flash and exposure techniques to capture extremely short instants and durations of time to extend the capacities of the human eye. In Gussie Moran Tennis Serve Multiflash, he used timed stroboscopic flashes and exposures to describe the cumulative forms of a body moving through space and time. In Bullet Shock Wave, a single exposure of minuscule duration captures a 22 caliber rifle bullet, and the shock waves it creates as it travels faster than the speed of sound. And Atomic Bomb Explosion, taken from seven miles away with a telescopic camera with a magneto-optic shutter, reveals the form of a nuclear blast micro-seconds after detonation. Artistically considered, these works transcend their scientific value through their extreme clarity, carefully composed compositions, bold abstract qualities, and dramatic revelations of the wonders of physical laws. Edgerton’s art is a lucid aesthetic based on a powerful and probing intellect.
