The last visit of Barbara Flueckiger’s research in the US was dedicated to the famous collection of the George Eastman House in Rochester. It is housed in the wonderful mansion of the founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, George Eastman, surrounded by large, beautiful gardens, situated in a historic neighborhood in Rochester NY.
Façade of the George Eastman House.
The selection of films and the procedure of Barbara Flueckiger’s research were discussed and established with Paolo Cherchi Usai, Senior Curator, Moving Image Department, Jared Case, Head of Collection Information, Research, and Access, and James Layton, Assistant Archivist.
During the first three days Barbara Flueckiger inspected historical film reels in collaboration with Jared Case who supervised the process.
Jared Case, Head of Collection Information, Research, and Access, supervised the access to the historic film reels.
The reels stemmed from early silent films with stencil coloring, tinting and Handschiegl, to two-color films in Magnacolor, Cinecolor, Brewster, Two-color Kodachrome, and Technicolor No. III.
“Cleopatra” (USA 1928, Roy William Neill) in Technicolor No. III. An Art Deco interpretation of the historical story. Credit: George Eastman House, Moving Image Department. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
Two of the most exciting films investigated were shot in Two-color Kodachrome, “The Flute of Krishna”, a dance film choreographed by the highly influential modern dancer Martha Graham, produced by the Eastman Kodak Company in 1926, and the experimental film [Kaleidoscope].
For the last two days, James Layton had prepared a huge pile of boxes with frame collections.
James Layton, Assistant Archivist, presents the famous Turconi collection.
The film frames stemmed from different collections such as a portrait collection, donated by a private collector, a nitrate frames collection with samples from the George Eastman House’ own holdings, the Technicolor frames collection from 1930, and the famous Turconi collection which goes back to the Swiss collector, the Jesuit priest Abbé Josef-Alexis Joye from Basel.
A stencil-colored frame from the nitrate frames collection. Credit: George Eastman House, Moving Image Department. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
All the several hundred photographs taken at George Eastman House will be onliine soon.
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The visit was concluded by James Layton’s presentation of his highly informative forthcoming book “The Dawn of Technicolor, 1915-1935”, co-authored with David Pierce. It will be published by the George Eastman House in Spring 2015.
Many thanks to
Paolo Cherchi Usai, Jared Case and James Layton!
This research was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation and a donation by a private sponsor.