This morning the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film announced that Director Anthony Bannon will retire in July 2012. The longest-standing director in this history of the museum, Bannon's 15-year tenure includes the creation of three post-graduate preservation schools, major acquisitions, alliances with museums and universities, leaps in conservation efforts, collectors clubs in large American cities, and national honors. Bannon will assist in the international search for a new director, which will begin in the coming months. "I am totally invested in George Eastman House and its wonderful extended family, but I feel it is time," says Bannon in the official press release, which you can read here.

A couple of years ago, staffers at the Eastman House were "in a facilitated strategic planning process and the facilitator brought up the idea of succession," Bannon said in an interview with City on Friday, July 22. "And I was pleased that it was put forward, but my first thought was that it didn't apply with any immediacy to me. It applied to some of the old-timers on the staff. Well, of course, I'm the oldest person on the staff," said Bannon, who is 68 years old. "It never occurred to me only a couple of years ago that retirement would be something I should consider. But I started, then, to consider it, and took advice."

"The Eastman House for these 15 years has been totally engaging," Bannon says. "I have deep respect for its history, its values, its mission, its purpose, and am committed to realizing the ideas that we have considered and taken on as ways to carry the mission forward. We have determined and accepted three strategic directions," he says, identifying those the areas as information technology, higher education, and capital needs assessment.

In the coming year, Bannon will continue to oversee certain projects and attend to relationships-in-process between the Eastman House and other institutions. "There are important fundraising objectives, collection considerations, and very exciting virtual positions I hope we can announce in this next year that we're working on right now," he says, adding intimations of "very exciting global leadership positions, the likes of which have not been done, maybe not even been considered by any other museum." But Bannon's primary objective is to facilitate a successful search for a new director.

"We enter this with a totally open mind for change," he says. Eastman House will embark on a "transparent and inclusive" search process, with a "structure informed by a broad constituency of staff, trustees, donors, and members."

The museum plans to announce a process and commence the search in late September to early October. "I can't wait to see who the next director will be," Bannon says, "because the person will have a new approach and bring new wisdom and have new solutions and build new projects and services that I had not imagined. That's the fun part."

Also in Eastman House news today is the naming of the new chair of the George Eastman House Board of Trustees, Thomas H. Jackson. Jackson is president emeritus and distinguished university professor at University of Rochester, where he was president from 1994 to 2005. He has served on the Eastman House board since 1994 and held the posts of vice-chairman and chairman of the museum's strategic planning and education committees. During the two years of Jackson's commitment, Bannon will work with him in year one to create a search process for the new director, fulfill that search, and to smoothly transition to working with the new leadership in year two.

Even in retirement, Bannon plans to continue working internationally in the arts field as a speaker, writer, and consultant. Prior to his time at Eastman House, he served as director of Burchfield-Penney Arts Center, director of cultural affairs on the campus of State University of New York at Buffalo, as an editor and art critic with The Buffalo News, and also worked as a filmmaker. "I'm really comfortable with this decision, its context, and timing," Bannon says of retirement, adding that "the best of all would be to have some angel tap me on the shoulder and announce some task that I haven't done or considered before."