By Tom Hoehn, Guest Blogger and George Eastman House member (“and proud of it!”)

My name is Tom Hoehn, a longtime member of George Eastman House. The current exhibit, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera,” (which, by the way, is just fantastic!) brought back a memory from my days as a kid in Rome, N.Y., that I wanted to share as guest blogger.

I was a fan of Norman Rockwell’s paintings, who wasn’t? As a kid I would write letters to people and almost 100% of the time I would get a
personal response. I couldn’t text them, “friend” them on Facebook, Google their address. I had to take a pen (or pencil in my case) to paper. My kids, who
can’t comprehend a world like this, wonder if dinosaurs wandered the streets of my hometown at that time as well.

I had a print of a Rockwell painting, his well-known self portrait, featuring him peeking around the canvas at a mirror. I had the idea of sending
it to him for a signature. Industrious kid that I was I put it in a mailing tube and carefully penned his name in his trademark block letter style hoping
to get his attention.  I addressed it “Norman Rockwell, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.” It had to find its way to him. I was a kid, what did I know? I also enclosed two $1 bills for return postage.

A short time later I got a response! Unfortunately, it was my print, unsigned, with a letter stating he was under contract and couldn’t sign
prints. However, Mr. Rockwell took the time to send me this postcard.

I also noted he hand wrote his return address on the envelope. Taking time to personally respond to a kid. What a guy.

I was happy because I got my requested signature! But that isn’t the end of the story. About a week later I got another envelope from Norman Rockwell, again with a handwritten address. Enclosed was the reminder of my $2 — in 13-cent stamps!

That’s just so, well, Norman Rockwell!

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is on display at George Eastman House now through Sept. 18, and features photographs and illustrations related to the classic 1963 painting that now hangs in the White House …

By Jeremy Clowe, Norman Rockwell Museum

President Barack Obama opened the doors of the White House on July 15, 2011, for a special meet and greet with Norman Rockwell Museum Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt; Museum President Anne Morgan; and Museum Trustee Ruby Bridges Hall. The meeting was held to celebrate the White House exhibit of Norman Rockwell’s classic 1963 painting “The Problem We All Live With, ” which was inspired by Bridges’ history-changing walk integrating William Frantz Public School in New Orleans on November 14, 1960. President Obama requested the loaning of the painting from the permanent collection of Norman Rockwell Museum to honor the 50th anniversary of Bridges’ childhood experience.

President Barack Obama, Ruby Bridges Hall, Norman Rockwell Museum Director Laurie Norton Moffatt, and Museum President Anne Morgan, view Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With,” hanging in a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office, July 15, 2011. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza. Courtesy The White House. All rights reserved.

“It was deeply moving to hear President Obama speak with Ruby Bridges about her school experience and Norman Rockwell’s painting,” says Ms. Norton Moffatt. “He acknowledged Ruby’s walk to school and her mother’s courage as the direct heritage that made it possible for him to serve in the White House.” Ms. Bridges Hall replied, “we all stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.”

From left to right: Norman Rockwell Museum Trustee Ruby Bridges Hall, President Anne Morgan, and Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt, wait outside the west entrance of the White House to meet with President Barack Obama. Photo ©Norman Rockwell Museum. All rights reserved.

During the afternoon meeting, the President showed his guests an original copy of The Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln, hanging in the Oval Office over a bronze bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the same room, the group viewed Rockwell’s original painting of the Statue of Liberty, painted for the July 6, 1946 cover of The Saturday Evening Post, and donated to the White House in 1994 by film director Steven Spielberg, who also serves on the Museum’s Board of Trustees.

‘The Problem We All Live With’ will be on view at the White House through October 31, hanging right outside of the Oval Office.

White House blog “President Obama Meets Civil Right Icon Ruby Bridges”

Mr. Jeremy Clowe is the manager of Media Services at the Norman Rockwell Museum and originally appeared on their site. Mr. Clowe will be presenting  The Stories Behind Rockwell’s Famous Faces at 2 p.m. Aug. 7 at George Eastman House.

I suppose it’s the feeling you get when you look at a garden you have cared for. Nothing can compare to experiencing it with your own senses, to see firsthand the fruits of your labor … that what you have planted, fed, and watered has flourished.

That was the feeling in the air at George Eastman House on Saturday, July 16, as National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter toured Eastman House.

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman, left, and George Eastman House’s Tony Bannon discuss the three-strip Technicolor process in the camera gallery at Eastman House.

Hosted by Tony Bannon, the museum’s Ron and Donna Fielding Director, the guests were shown the Speed Graphic camera that shot the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, displayed alongside the image, as well as a NASA Lunar Orbiter, Lumiere Cinematographe, and a three-strip Technicolor camera that had been used on studio lots for many celebrated MGM films.

And this was all before Landesman and Congresswoman Slaughter took their seats in the Dryden Theatre to experience films from the Eastman House motion picture archive, restored with the support from the NEA. The selected titles included the oldest film version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910), an early sound film from Theodore Case (1925), screen tests from Gone With the Wind (1939), and a documentary directed by Paul Morrissey (1965).

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, co-chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus, tells why it’s important to support the arts in Rochester and nationally.

Slaughter, co-chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus, is a longtime supporter of the arts as well as Eastman House, continuing to connect Rochester to the leadership of the arts in Washington, D.C. It for this tireless work the museum honored her with the inaugural George Eastman Medal of Honor in 2006.

The threads of George Eastman House are intertwined with those of federal agencies that serve the public, such as the Library of Congress and the National Archives. In this vein the museum’s collections and preservation schools and workshops have national and global reach and impact. But this, of course, cannot be achieved without support.

Both Landesman and Slaughter told local TV press how important it is to experience the country’s leading cultural organizations firsthand, in person.

“Film is a great art form, our cultural heritage, and right here is where it is preserved,” Landesman said. “Tony Bannon is a legend throughout the country for the work he does and we want to support him and George Eastman House.”

A private viewing in the Dryden Theatre of films from the Eastman House archive restored via support from the NEA. On the screen here is the oldest film version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (1910)

Any visitor who comes in through the main entrance of George Eastman House will notice a large glass wall to the left. Through this glass you can see the Richard & Ronay Menschel Library, curatorial departments such as Motion Pictures, Photography and Technology, and a staircase that leads down to two more floors. While you don’t need to make an appointment to visit the Library (especially this summer, when due to a shelving project we are all enjoying a rare treat of the Library’s photo and cinema books and magazines temporarily relocated to our Entrance Gallery), you do need to make one to visit the archives that contain our spectacular collections.

 From time to time, we host visitors where I work: the Kay R. Whitmore Conservation Center. A few weeks ago we took a small group of friends interested in preservation ‘behind the glass’ and one floor down for a special tour of the photograph conservation laboratory. The purpose of this visit was to raise awareness of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s challenge grant.  Here’s some of what they saw:

A view of the Kay R. Whitmore Conservation Center.

 An accelerated tarnish experiment testing daguerreotype enclosures.

The Conservator’s tools of the trade.

Conservation practices at Eastman House are critical to the care of photographs we have in the collection, exhibit in our galleries, or loan out to other museums. When the department was established in 1974, it was the first of its kind dedicated solely to photograph conservation. For nearly 40 years, our conservators, fellows, and interns have contributed to the preservation of history and culture — through photographic objects — at Eastman House and at institutions around the world.

In the Whitmore Conservation Center, we conduct research and report findings on Notes on Photographs , in journals or at conferences. We also hold workshops on historic photo processes for collectors, artists, curators, members or anyone interested in the history of photography (we even get a chance to go one more floor down to see choice examples in our photography collection). Eastman House is helping to ensure that photographs made since the beginning of the medium in 1839 through today will exist for as long as possible in order to visually tell our collective stories— and its these stories we love to share and discover behind the glass wall.