The George Eastman Museum has received a grant award of $250,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) through its Museums for America program to support its project Lost and Found: Classic Pakistani Cinema. The grant will allow the museum to identify, catalogue, repair, and clean 135 rare and fragile films from the Anwar Shiekh film collection. This project builds upon film conservation work that began in 2020 with a previous IMLS grant award for cataloging and conservation of more than 1,000 South Asian films.

The George Eastman Museum presents Selections from the Collection, the newest display of items from the museum's photography vaults on view in the Collection Gallery, starting Saturday, September 30.

The George Eastman Museum will present the works of photographer Gregory Halpern (American, b. 1977). The exhibition, 19 winters / 7 springs, will open at the museum on Saturday, September 16, 2023, and will run through Sunday, March 3, 2024.

The George Eastman Museum is proud to present Nellie Bly Around the World in 72 Days: A Magic Lantern Show as part of the 2023 Rochester Fringe Festival on Thursday, September 21 at 7 p.m. on the museum’s East Lawn. More information about the George Eastman Museum event, including ticket information, is available at eastman.org. Tickets for all Rochester Fringe Festival (Tuesday, Sept. 12 – Saturday, Sept. 23) events are now on sale at rochesterfringe.com, where more information is also available.

The George Eastman Museum is proud to present Nellie Bly Around the World in 72 Days: A Magic Lantern Show as part of the 2023 Rochester Fringe Festival on Thursday, September 21 at 7 p.m. on the museum’s East Lawn. More information about the George Eastman Museum event, including ticket information, is available at eastman.org. Tickets for all Rochester Fringe Festival (Tuesday, Sept. 12 – Saturday, Sept. 23) events are now on sale at rochesterfringe.com, where more information is also available.

The George Eastman Museum has appointed Daniel Peacock as an assistant curator in its Department of Photography. In his new role, Peacock will research the museum’s collection, collaborate on collection development, curate exhibitions at the museum, and author or contribute to scholarly publications. Peacock began in the position in July 2023.

The George Eastman Museum will host a community forum in the museum's Multipurpose Hall at 6 p.m. on Monday, June 26, to inform the public about the significant restoration projects that are underway to sustain the museum's National Historic Landmark. 

The George Eastman Museum announced today the opening of Gillian Laub: Southern Rites, an exhibition featuring American photographer and filmmaker Gillian Laub. The exhibition will be on display in the museum’s main galleries from June 30 through the end of 2023.

Southern Rites is a powerful photographic exploration of racial tensions and discrimination in the American South. Laub spent over two decades documenting the lives and experiences of individuals in Montgomery County, Ga., a community marked by deep-seated racial divisions.

The George Eastman Museum announced today the opening of Resistance and Rescue: Denmark and the Holocaust, an exhibition featuring American photographer Judy Glickman Lauder’s portraits of Danes who participated in rescuing Jews from deportation by Germany during World War II—and of Jews who were rescued. The portraits, taken in the early 1990s, are each accompanied by the story of the individual’s experience. The exhibition will be presented in the museum’s new Gallery Obscura through October 1.

The George Eastman Museum honored Jodie Foster with the George Eastman Award Thursday evening in front of a packed crowd. The George Eastman Award, established in 1955, is the museum’s highest honor in motion pictures and recognizes Foster’s distinguished contributions to the art of film.

The Garden Vibes summer concert series will return to the George Eastman Museum this summer after a three-year hiatus due to construction on the mansion and in the gardens. The museum will host the outdoor concerts on June 14, July 19, and August 16 on the east lawn, located on the east side of the mansion next to the Schuyler C. Townson Terrace Garden.

The George Eastman Museum will honor actor and filmmaker Jodie Foster with the George Eastman Award for distinguished contribution to the art of cinema on Thursday, May 25. Tickets for the benefit gala will go on sale to Eastman Museum members on April 25, and any remaining tickets will go on sale to the public on May 2. Tickets and other information for the gala and a related series of seven films at the Dryden Theatre will be available at eastman.org/eastmanaward2023.

Gallery Obscura, George Eastman Museum’s newest exhibition space, is set to open on Saturday, March 4. The inaugural exhibit will be produced in collaboration with the Flower City Arts Center, which will run through June 1.

Gallery Obscura will take on a unique role – featuring exhibitions created or presented in collaboration with community organizations and school and youth programs, projects focused on Greater Rochester, and exhibitions from the museum’s collections that are thematically related to community events or that support other museum initiatives and programming.

The George Eastman Museum will present the seventh edition of the Nitrate Picture Show in late spring. The world’s only festival entirely dedicated to nitrate film will be held June 1-4, 2023 at the Dryden Theatre, the George Eastman Museum’s historic venue for film exhibition in Rochester, N.Y. Festival passes are currently available for purchase through the museum’s website at eastman.org/nitrate-picture-show.

The George Eastman Museum, in collaboration with the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, recently announced the first-ever museum exhibition dedicated to longtime photographer Marcia Resnick. Following presentations at Bowdoin and in Minneapolis, the exhibition opens at the George Eastman Museum Saturday, February 11.

The legacy of actor/director/producer Philip Seymour Hoffman will continue to be celebrated at the George Eastman Museum. A life-size bronze sculpture of the actor, created by David A. Annand, has been donated to the museum. Erected on the sidewalk in front of the museum’s Dryden Theatre in May 2022, the sculpture was initially on loan.

The George Eastman Museum will bring an early dose of spring to Rochester this February with its annual Dutch Connection floral show. The display will open to the public on February 10 and will remain on view for two weeks. The annual show is a welcome treat in the midst of winter, with thousands of tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, amaryllis, and spring annuals in various vibrant shades filling areas of George Eastman’s historic mansion. Tropical orchids courtesy of the Genesee Region Orchid Society will also be on display throughout the mansion.

The George Eastman Museum will open the major new exhibition Joshua Rashaad McFadden: I Believe I’ll Run On in its main galleries on Friday, November 5, 2021. The exhibition is an early-career survey of the Rochester-based artist’s work, in which McFadden critically examines the racism and anti-Black violence that Black Americans have experienced from slavery to the present. To this end, McFadden explores how racism, masculinity, sexuality, and gender impact Black Americans, while at the same time he envisions Black life liberated from these strictures.

The George Eastman Museum will present To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults, a photographic exhibition on view from June 19, 2021 through January 2, 2022. This interdisciplinary project is a collaboration between photographer Jess T. Dugan and social worker Vanessa Fabbre, an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis whose research focuses on the intersection of LGBTQ issues and aging.

The Dryden Theatre will reopen to the public with a screening of Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, US 1941) on Friday, April 2, followed by Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, US 1954) on Saturday, April 3. All films will begin at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:45 p.m.).

One of the landmark projects of the George Eastman Museum’s Moving Image Department was the preservation of Orson Welles’s 1938 comedy, Too Much Johnson. The film, once thought lost, can be viewed at eastman.org/TooMuchJohnson. The digitized version of the film includes new recorded voice-over commentary by Anthony L’Abbate, preservation manager, and Caroline Yeager, associate curator, of the George Eastman Museum. The online film also includes a new musical score provided by Philip C.

The George Eastman Museum is launching a new series of virtual talks, Future/Present, featuring early- to mid-career photographers and artists who are exploring some of the most pressing issues of our time and pushing the boundaries of image-making and visual culture today. The series will kick off online with visual artist and storyteller Citali Fabián on March 18 at 6 p.m. The event is free for museum members and $10 suggested ticket for non-museum members.