The George Eastman Museum presents the exhibition Evoke: A Youthful Expression, on view through March 9, 2025, showcasing the work of student artist participants of In Control, a program of Planned Parenthood of Central and Western New York.

The George Eastman Museum will honor actor Goldie Hawn with the George Eastman Award for distinguished contribution to the art of cinema on Tuesday, October 22.

The George Eastman Museum is delighted to announce the forthcoming exhibition, Scene at Eastman, which will open on October 25, 2024 and close on April 20, 2025. The exhibition will comprise a set of photographs and sculptures made in aluminum, glass, concrete, paper, tin, and other materials. The photographs and sculptures in Scene at Eastman (“the works”) describe various acts and instances of apprehension, of address, of attendance to the presence of others. Some objects are original, others appropriated. The viewer’s own practice of looking is solicited by the works.

The George Eastman Museum has received a grant award of $98,220 from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s Frankenthaler Climate Initiative—the largest private national grantmaking program to support climate change action at cultural institutions and the first nationwide program of its kind for the visual arts. The grant supports the installation of a new LED lighting system in the museum’s Main Galleries and adjacent exhibition spaces.

To commemorate the 125th anniversary of the birth of American dancer, actor, singer, and choreographer Fred Astaire, the George Eastman Museum is pleased to announce the online publication of a unique piece of film history: a 1936 screen test of Astaire’s sister Adele, a Broadway legend in her own right. This is the only known footage of her acting and singing. Unseen for nearly ninety years, it will now be accessible to the public, going live at eastman.org/dark-victory-test on Wednesday, May 8, 2024.

The George Eastman Museum has announced the next phase of a multiyear project to create a new exhibition on George Eastman’s life and legacy. The George Eastman Story Lab, which will open on Saturday, May 18 in the mansion’s second-floor Sitting Room, will offer visitors the opportunity to provide feedback on the direction of the future exhibition. 

To kick off the eighth annual Nitrate Picture Show, the George Eastman Museum will screen a unique tinted nitrate print of D.W. Griffith’s silent masterpiece Intolerance (1916) on Thursday, May 30 at 6:30 p.m. The Nitrate Picture Show is the first festival in the world entirely dedicated to screening original nitrate prints from the 1910s to the 1950s, from silent cinema to Technicolor spectacles. The full program of film titles being shown this year will be announced at a press conference at 10 a.m.

The George Eastman Museum has appointed historian and curator Michelle Finn, PhD, as curator of the George Eastman Collection, with responsibility for George Eastman’s 35,000‑square-foot mansion, its contents, and archival materials comprising more than 200,000 items. Finn will start in the position on April 15.

The George Eastman Museum continues its 75th anniversary celebration with the opening of the exhibition New Directions: Recent Acquisitions on Saturday, March 16 in the Project Gallery. New Directions features work acquired by the museum over the past five years, and showcases significant developments in photographic practice.

The George Eastman Museum will present a benefit film screening on Sunday, April 3 at 7:30 p.m. in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. In Spring (Navesni; Vesnoi, Mikhail Kaufman, USSR [Ukraine] 1929, 65 min., 35mm) is a seminal work of Ukrainian cinema as well as a hymn to the miracle of life. The fact that it was filmed in and around Kyiv makes it particularly poignant today. The silent film was directed by filmmaker Mikhail Kaufman and will be accompanied by Dr. Philip C. Carli on piano. 

The George Eastman Museum has appointed Phil Taylor as an assistant curator in its Department of Photography. He will be based primarily in New York City. His role will include participating in collection development, curating exhibitions at the Eastman Museum in Rochester, and authoring or contributing to accompanying publications and other scholarly books. 

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.