At my workplace, we recently held a “county fair”-themed event, and in looking for decorations, my coworker inadvertently turned me on to the illustration of John Hanna. After seeing the image of the pig on the pink background, I spent several hours one weekend going down the rabbit hole of Country Fair covers. In the 1950s, John Hanna was responsible for the creation of a series of at least 50 amazing covers for the British Country Fair, “a monthly journal of the open air” edited by Macdonald Hastings. An Australian who arrived in London in 1947, Hanna made his living as a commercial artist and cartoonist. He died in 1992.

I find the illustrations so captivating, and full of charm. I love their boldness and the solid color background of the covers, and the variety in the level of detail in the animal depicted. I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing for some originals, or even nice reproductions to frame and display in my home and office.

Much appreciation to the blog Asbury & Asbury, from which this biographical information comes. The images are from a variety of online sources, but mainly this one.

Source: Full Table

Around this time every year, I take stock of this website and think about its roots and its evolution. Last month marks five years since Muybridge’s Horse launched. A lot has changed since then – I left my largely undemanding desk job (that allowed me to turn my blog into a comprehensive website) and my quiet, slow life in Kansas and made the move to Portland, where I worked part-time for two years before gaining full-time status last summer. I stopped having free time that I could devote to researching, emailing with, and writing about artists. And blogs pretty much ceased to be a thing.

Due to all these changes, I’ve moved from updating twice weekly to once per week – if that, at times. I’m always trying to tell myself, “That’s okay!” I remind myself that this website is for me, and anyone who happens to see it as well is a bonus. I’ll keep posting here for as long as I can, however infrequently. Maybe (hopefully), 2018 will be the year the site changes form a bit and becomes less of a blog/feed and more of an archive and artist index. It is so difficult to imagine my life without MH. Thank you for being here.

As always, submissions are OPEN. Email me with your art or the art of folks you know or the art that you love – muybridgeshorse@gmail.com. For now, I thought I’d share some of what I’m reading, as I’m reading more now than I have in a long time. (And just in case you didn’t know, you can keep up with MH on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.)

Apologia, Barry Lopez I have been meaning to read this story for so long. Of course I’ve been aware of Barry Lopez and his writings, especially since moving to the Northwest, but I had yet to find Apologia since it was recommended to me during the portfolio walkthrough at the national SPE conference in San Francisco in 2012. I’m an avid library user and I prefer to borrow books whenever possible, but my library system didn’t have a copy. It took briefly living in a different county this summer and registering for a library card there for me to finally get this book into my hands, and I absolutely loved reading it (and looking at the woodcuts by Robin Eschner). So many things I’ve read recently have made my heart hurt with emotion. This book is no exception.

The Dead Bird, Margaret Wise Brown I can’t believe it, but I only found out about this book when reading Ellyn Kail’s post about the Remembering Animals exhibition on Feature Shoot. This one my library did have… right downstairs from my office. The copy I read is illustrated by Christian Robinson, of Last Stop on Market Street fame (and of Gaston fame, to me). I’d love to track down older versions to see the illustrations. The ones by Remy Charlip look pretty wonderful.

Beyond the Dark Veil: Post Mortem & Mourning Photography This is another book I have been after for a long time. Many months ago, I put in a purchase suggestion at, you guessed it, my library. I was thrilled when they bought it! And it came to me as a hold. I’ll admit that I’ve had to return it and put it on hold a couple of times since then, as I really wanted to spend some time with it. The past few days I’ve flipped through it several times – and it is incredible. I can’t wait to read the essays that accompany the amazing images.

Comic Epitaphs from the Very Best Old Graveyards Can I mention the library one more time? If you haven’t realized by now, I work at a public library, in the administration division. One of my roles is to post on social media and keep up with other libraries’ profiles. A library we follow mentioned that they received this book as a donation, and I immediately added it to my Amazon Wish List of books. Then it occurred to me to see if my own library has a copy, and we do! This was super fun and lovely to read. It reminded me of waiting in line for The Haunted Mansion at Disney World/Disneyland – reading the funny gravestones leading up to the ride is almost my favorite part.

Of One and The Other, Jayanti Seiler Lastly, I am truly looking forward to digging into Jayanti Seiler’s beautiful photo book, which arrived in the mail last weekend. I supported this book through GoFundMe; Jayanti is seeking funding to self-publish a limited edition of her high-quality fine art book consisting of text and over 50 images from her project. An additional set of books will be printed within a couple of months. Check out the project and give your support now as these books are only available through March.

Other things I’ve been reading:
Pigeons: A Complete Pet Owner’s Manual I bought my first house (!) earlier this year, and my dreams of keeping pigeons may finally be on the near horizon. I love learning everything about them. If you have tips or insider knowledge, get in touch!
When a Pet Dies, Fred Rogers The world did not deserve the gift that was Mister Rogers. I adore him, and reading this sweet book for kids after seeing the Remembering Animals exhibition was poignant.
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, Sherman Alexie I love the chapter “Drive, She Said,” about how Alexie’s mother would stop for roadkill, collecting a porcupine and taking it home to harvest its quills for war-dance regalia – “and the dozens of times she gave extraordinary meaning to ordinary porcupines and their quills.”

I cannot recall how or when I first found out about Jo-Anne McArthur’s animal-focused photojournalism, but I do remember my interest in the work she does being reinvigorated when a friend shared on Facebook the Washington Post article These haunting animal photos aim to make you reconsider a visit to the zoo. It features a fascinating and wonderfully thoughtful Q&A about McArthur’s new book, Captive. Through the photographs in Captive, McArthur aims to turn the conversation about animals in captivity toward the individual creatures who suffer in environments like zoos and aquariums, bored and without autonomy. The images are so affecting, haunting, and heartbreaking.

Jo-Anne McArthur has been documenting the complex relationship between humans and animals around the globe to create the long-term project We Animals, which spans 20 years and over 50 countries. Recently, McArthur launched the We Animals Archive, a resource for the animal movement, journalists, and educators. The archive is a collection of thousands of images and videos of animals in the human environment – those animals we use for food, clothing, research, experimentation, work, entertainment, and companionship – that are available for free to individuals, organizations, and media outlets around the world working to help animals. The We Animals Archive is the searchable repository for McArthur’s important ongoing work. I’m so happy to know about this incredible resource.

From the artist’s statement: I do this work because I don’t accept the cruelty we inflict on innocents. Because I’ve seen the useless suffering, and the dying. Because how we use and abuse animals is wrong. Because what we do to animals is an inexcusable and terrible abuse of power. Because this abuse needs to change immediately. Because it’s an emergency for billions of animals every day. Because animals value their lives, just as we do. I do this work so that we can see, and feel responsible (because we are all responsible for this), and change.”

McArthur is also the co-founder of the Unbound Project, which documents the women on the front lines of animal advocacy. This woman is legitimately my hero.

Visit artist's site: joannemcarthur.com

I’ve been posting content related to animals/nature and art here for almost nine years, and I’ve somehow never included the work of John James Audubon, truly one of my favorite artists of all time. Last Monday night, I went to a screening of the film Audubon: John James Audubon and the Birds of America at the Hollywood Theatre, put on by the Audubon Society of Portland.

I was surprised to realize how little I knew of Audubon before seeing this film. I didn’t know that Mill Grove, the Audubon family farm where Audubon lived when he first came to the US, is in Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia; or that he and his wife, Lucy, started their family in Henderson, KY, near the Kentucky/Indiana/Illinois border. I knew that Audubon had ties to New Orleans (I had been to the Audubon Insectarium), but I didn’t know how much time he spent there or how strong the connection was (in New Orleans is the Audubon Nature Institute, which consists of the Audubon Zoo, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Park, and more).

I had known the Audubon quote, “I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens” (it used to be the description on the Audubon blog I kept once upon a time) and had a love/hate relationship with it, but I appreciated that the film really emphasized the fact that while Audubon did kill the animals he depicted, he also spent a lot of time observing them in life. In fact, he couldn’t have made such accurate representations of the birds in movement if he didn’t know very well how they behaved in their natural habitat.

Last year there was a post about Birds of America, lauded as the world’s most expensive book, on Don’t Take Pictures. If you want to learn more about the production of this book, consisting of 435 hand-colored plates and depicting over 1,000 species of birds in life-size, that post is a great place to start.

All these images come from the University of Pittsburgh University Library System Digital Collections. The University of Pittsburgh owns one of the complete sets of Audubon’s Birds of America. Only 120 complete sets are known to exist. I tried to mostly include pieces that were featured in the film, but some of my favorites not mentioned snuck in there. I was happy that the documentary talked about my favorite Audubon piece, the Eskimo Curlew, the only dead bird (just dead, not being killed/eaten) that Audubon ever represented.

What I knew about Joke Schut from an email she sent me a few years ago was that she made beautiful documentary portraits (of humans). This fall, I was excited to learn that Schut is also interested in making the same thoughtful, deep photographs of dogs. In her two series Dogs of Rotterdam (part of the photo contest De Kracht van Rotterdam in 2016) and Shelter Dogs, Schut explores two different sides of life with dogs. In the former, she captures the love between owners and their dogs, the humans smiling and prideful. In the latter, owner-less dogs are the subject of dreary yet sometimes hopeful images. Both projects have me wanting to go home and snuggle my own dog.

Visit artist's site: jokeschut.nl