George Eastman House’s celebrated journal Image now available online, from 1952 to 1997

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — George Eastman House International Museum of Photography & Film has digitized 47 years of Image magazine for open online distribution. This seminal journal, published by the museum from 1952 to the present, features formative scholarship in the history of photography and motion pictures. The online issues span through 1997.

In its first decades, Image featured articles by Beaumont Newhall, Eastman House's first curator and author of The History of Photography, as well as James Card, the museum’s first motion picture curator and an eminent motion picture historian. Also contributing numerous articles was George Pratt, a silent film scholar and author of the widely consulted Spellbound in Darkness. Other noted contributors include Eastman House curators and respected artists Minor White, Nathan Lyons, Thomas Barrow, and Robert Sobieszek.

“Together this accumulation of research and interpretation established the history of photography as a legitimate field of scholarship,” said Dr. Anthony Bannon, director of Eastman House, the world’s oldest museum of photography.

Image is a leading document of cultural history information. However, with issues limited to museum membership, they have been difficult to obtain and complete collections are rare.

Image online is accessible through the museum’s Web site, eastmanhouse.org. Several search options are available, including year, author, and title. Each issue, which features a detailed index, can be downloaded. This online project has been made possible by a grant from IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services).