The George Eastman Museum is celebrating 75 years as an epicenter of photography and film — this morning, Mayor Malik Evans and County Executive Adam Bello designated July 22 as a day to mark the milestone, followed by a tour of the museum’s sprawling exhibition “Life with Photographs: 75 Years of the Eastman Museum.”
Standing just outside the gallery, Bello said the tradition of pushing boundaries in Rochester can be traced directly back to Eastman himself.
“Our history is in creativity, it’s in innovation and it’s thinking outside the box,” said Bello. “It’s thinking about how you, too, have the ability to change the world. We owe that sense of who we are to George Eastman.”
Evans, meanwhile, likened the internationally respected cultural institution — the oldest photography museum in the world — to an under-appreciated gem at home.
“It’s really something I think a lot of folks in Rochester take for granted,” he said. “Sometimes we can take things for granted in our hometown. I think this anniversary of the 75th anniversary of the George Eastman Museum gives us an opportunity to appreciate it.”
The timing for Rochester to appreciate what it has perhaps couldn’t be better.
When ambitious arts and culture projects need funding, centers often get it from the Institute of Museums and Library Services. But earlier this year, the Trump administration aimed to dismantle that agency, leaving federal funding in limbo.
This hit the George Eastman Museum directly, affecting three major projects, though a federal appeals court decision has kept them in motion for now.
“Fortunately, none of the three grants heavily impacted our general operating,” said Eliza Benington, the museum’s senior director of marketing and engagement. “We’ve not been impacted as much as some of the other cultural institutions, museums, have been impacted, as far as staff and that sort of thing.”
The museum first opened its doors in 1949, and since then, it’s needed to make some changes, like converting parts of the historic mansion into galleries and adding accessible features. One elevator dates back to 1905 and can’t fit modern wheelchairs and scooters, for example.
That’s where the grants help.
“We are really transforming some non-restored areas of the mansion into gallery spaces,” said Benington. “This is going to be the most transformative project we’ve done since the building in 1989 was built to house the galleries and the vaults and the archives.”
Another ongoing project is the continued bolstering of the museum’s collection of South Asian films; it now houses 1,200 prints of films in 10 different languages, all stored and conserved in the museum’s vaults.
To mark 75 years — and the museum’s diamond anniversary — a grant is helping support the digitization of hundreds of audio and visual recordings from its history.
Benington said that as the museum waits to see what happens, the staff also need to find other ways to continue its mission.
“I think what it does challenge us to do is just, yes, being patient and waiting, but also looking for other opportunities for funding,” she said. “We’ve all needed to seek different sources for funding, because we don’t want these projects to lay dormant. We really would like to keep moving forward.”
For another 75 years, at least.
“Life with Photographs: 75 Years of the Eastman Museum” is open through August 31. More info and tickets here.
Patrick Hosken is CITY’s arts reporter. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
