Rochester, N.Y. - George Eastman House will host its second Google Art Talk on Thursday, June 12 at noon through the Google Art Project to discuss its Southworth & Hawes Preservation Project. Those interested in learning more about the museum's collection of more than 1,200 daguerreotypes-the largest repository of work by Southworth & Hawes-and what Eastman House is doing to preserve it, can tune into the live lecture here:http://bit.ly/1hly6KB.
George Eastman House holds a vast historically important and aesthetically unparalleled collection of daguerreotypes by America's acknowledged masters of the medium, Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes. In 2008, Eastman House received a multi-year National Endowment for the Arts-Save America's Treasures grant that enabled the stabilization and re-housing of these unique and culturally significant objects. This grant allowed Eastman House staff to improve the physical preservation of these daguerreotypes and increase access to the collection.
The Google Art Talk will feature George Eastman House conservators Taina Meller and Ralph Wiegandt, as well as Lisa Hostetler and Jamie M. Allen from the Department of Photography. They will discuss Southworth & Hawes, the daguerreotype process, the findings leading up to the grant application, and the process of implementing an oxygen-free housing environment for these objects.
George Eastman House joined the Google Art Project in in 2013, and hosted its first Google Art Talk in January of this year. The talk featured Deb Stoiber, a film archivist in the Moving Image department, discussing lesser known films of American cinema. The archived talk is available for viewing on-demand on the Google Art Project's YouTube page, where it currently has more than 2,000 views.
For more information about the Google Art Talk or the Southworth & Hawes Preservation Project, visit eastmanhouse.org.
About George Eastman House
George Eastman House holds unparalleled collections, totaling more than four million objects, of photographs, motion pictures, cameras and technology, and photographically illustrated books. Established as an independent non-profit institution in 1947, it is the world's oldest photography museum and third largest film archive in the United States. The museum is in Rochester, NY, and includes the National Historic Landmark house and gardens of George Eastman, the philanthropist and father of popular photography and motion picture film. Learn more at eastmanhouse.org.
