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Paolo Gioli (Italian, 1942– ). L'uomo di Eakins. 1982. Polaroid color print collage with applied silk transfer and color pencil on paper. Photo credit: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund.

In the early 1980s, artist and filmmaker Paolo Gioli used a Polaroid camera to pay tribute to the “first photographers” of the 19th century. This work references both Eadweard Muybridge—whose serial photographs provided a never-before-seen breakdown of human movement—and Thomas Eakins, a painter and sculptor who made motion studies and served on the commission that supervised the Muybridge photography project at the University of Pennsylvania. Muybridge and Eakins showed the movements of men and women performing daily activities in the nude, which fascinated scientists and artists (but scandalized Victorian society).