Home > Artists > Harold Edgerton

Harold Edgerton (1903-1990)


Harold Edgerton was born on 6 April 1903 in Nebraska. He trained as an electrical engineer at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and then pursued a Masters degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, where he was made a professor in 1934.

While studying for his degree in 1931, Harold Edgerton developed an electronic flash system to enable him to photograph a motor in action. This invention would become hugely influential, and Edgerton would use it throughout his career as an engineer and as a photographer to photograph objects moving at high speed. Edgerton photographed bullets breaking through playing cards, animals in motion, sportsmen kicking balls and milk dropping into a pool of liquid. His photographs were widely publicised and his work Milkdrop Coronet was included in the Museum of Modern Art, New York’s first exhibition of photography in 1937.

His photography has been exhibited internationally, including at The Photographer’s Gallery, London. Edgerton’s work is held in several permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.


There are no results