Episode No. 77 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features author Edward Ball and artist David Maisel.

Ball’s new book is “The Inventor and the Tycoon.” It tells the story of the relationship between photographer (and murderer) Eadweard Muybridge and railroad tycoon Leland Stanford, one of the Big Four who built the western half of the transcontinental railroad. Stanford commissioned Muybridge’s famous ‘animal locomotion’ pictures and stood by his man even as Muybridge faced a murder charge. Ball’s book weaves together the story of their lives, their success and their eventual enmity into a rollicking-good narrative.

Ball won the National Book Award in 1998 for “Slaves in the Family,” which examines his family’s ownership of slaves in South Carolina.

On the second segment, David Maisel discusses his new book “Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime,” which is just out from Steidl. An exhibition by the same title of Maisel’s work is on view at the University of Colorado Art Museum through May 11.

Air date: April 25, 2013.