The George Eastman Museum appoints Dr. Peter Bagrov as
Curator in Charge of its Moving Image Department
Paolo Cherchi Usai to serve Eastman Museum as curator at large
Rochester, N.Y., August 13, 2019—The George Eastman Museum has appointed Peter Bagrov, PhD, as Curator in Charge of its Moving Image Department. He will assume the post on August 16. Bagrov was previously senior curator of Gosfilmofond, the national film archive of Russia, and has nearly twenty years of experience as a film curator and scholar.
Paolo Cherchi Usai, the former Senior Curator of the department, has taken a leadership position at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Italy’s national film institute. He has dedicated more than twenty years of service to the Eastman Museum—mostly as the head curator of the department—advancing its leadership in the field. Cherchi Usai will continue to contribute to the Eastman Museum, serving as curator at large.
“We are excited by the future of our Moving Image Department under the leadership of Peter Bagrov,” said Dr. Bruce Barnes, Ron and Donna Fielding Director, George Eastman Museum.
“A prolific scholar, he shares our institution’s commitment to excellence in film preservation, scholarship, and exhibition. For several years, he has collaborated with members of our Moving Image Department as a member of the advisory board for our Nitrate Picture Show.”
Bagrov’s standing in the field was demonstrated by his election as vice president of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). In addition to his senior curatorial position at Gosfilmofond, he was artistic director of the Belye Stolby archival film festival, the oldest and largest in Russia. Bagrov has also held several positions in academia, including at the Russian Institute of Art History, the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the European University at St. Petersburg, and the St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television. He has held fellowships at the University of Chicago and at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge.
“I am looking forward to my work at the George Eastman Museum, and being able to surround myself with a world-class collection of film that was so meticulously shaped and lovingly curated,” said Dr. Peter Bagrov. “From James Card to Paolo Cherchi Usai, the moving image collection at the museum was built and stewarded by some of the most passionate minds in the industry, and I look forward to continuing the work of my predecessors. It will be an honor to join their ranks and perhaps eventually add some of my own personality to this illustrious collection of cinema.”
Bagrov holds a doctorate from the Scientific Research Institute of Film in Moscow and a master’s degree in plasma physics from St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University. He and his wife, film scholar and philologist Anna Kovalova, PhD, and their two children have relocated from Moscow to Rochester.
About the George Eastman Museum
Founded in 1947, the George Eastman Museum is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the largest film archives in the United States, located on the historic Rochester estate of entrepreneur and philanthropist George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography. Its holdings comprise more than 400,000 photographs, 28,000 motion picture films, the world’s preeminent collection of photographic and cinematographic technology, one of the leading libraries of books related to photography and cinema, and extensive holdings of documents and other objects related to George Eastman. As a research and teaching institution, the Eastman Museum has an active publishing program and, through its two joint master’s degree programs with the University of Rochester, makes critical contributions to the fields of film preservation and of photographic preservation and collection management. For more information, visit eastman.org.
# # #
ATTN MEDIA: A museum head shot of Dr. Peter Bagrov is available to download for media use at the following URL: https://eastmanmuseum.box.com/v/peterbagrov19.
Media Contact: Kellie Fraver, Public Relations Manager
George Eastman Museum
(585) 327-4813
