Currently not on view

.30 Bullet Piercing an Apple,
1964, printed 1985

Harold Eugene Edgerton, American, 1903–1990

x1987-20.7

"Don’t make me out to be an artist. I am an engineer. I am after the facts, only the facts," said Edgerton. A noted photographer, Harold "Doc" Eugene Edgerton was best known as an electrical engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who invented the strobe light in the 1930s and patented the stroboscope—a high-powered repeatable flash—in 1949. These devices stop the appearance of motion and, when combined with photography, appear to "freeze time" and capture events which the unaided eye cannot see—such as when a bullet explodes through the flesh of an apple. Edgerton’s ability to take split-second images with precision and beauty revolutionized the art of photography and also impacted
how photography was used for scientific experimentation,
for military surveillance, and by the film industry.

Information

Title

.30 Bullet Piercing an Apple

Dates

1964, printed 1985

Maker

Harold Eugene Edgerton

Medium

Dye transfer print

Dimensions

image: 35.7 x 45.7 cm (14 1/16 x 18 in.) sheet: 40.7 x 50.7 cm (16 x 19 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of James P. Harrington, Class of 1947

Object Number

x1987-20.7

Place Made

North America, United States

Inscription

In ink, below image: Harold Edgerton

Culture

American

Type

photographs, color photographs, silver-dye bleach prints

Techniques

dye transfer process

Subject

stroboscopic lamps, bullets, fruit

"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1987", <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 47, no. 1 (1988): p. 30-54., p. 38

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Citation

Harold Eugene Edgerton (American, 1903–1990), .30 Bullet Piercing an Apple, 1964, printed 1985. Dye transfer print; 35.7 x 45.7 cm (image), 40.7 x 50.7 cm (sheet). Gift of James P. Harrington, Class of 1947 (x1987-20.7) https://artmuseum-beta.princeton.edu/art/collections/objects/16663

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Currently not on view

.30 Bullet Piercing an Apple,
1964, printed 1985

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.30 Bullet Piercing an Apple, 1964, printed 1985

Information

Bibliographic Entries

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