The new exhibit at George Eastman House marks the first major exhibition of images culled from the collection to be shown in the United States, and features more than 500 photographs by famous, not-so-famous, and unknown artists. William Hunt is a renowned curator and dealer who has been collecting photographs for four decades, and he describes his collection as "magical, heart-stopping images of people in which the eyes cannot be seen," per the Eastman House statement.

The images are each beautiful stand-alone works, but together form a poignant and fascinating collection with one common theme: the gaze of the subject is averted, the face obscured, or some similar element ties the image loosely into this set. Without a peek into or even at the eyes of the subject, something crucial is hidden from the camera's all-capturing gaze.

Most images depict people, but are not limited to this in the literal sense -a section of a wall holds images of sculptural busts, the eyes shut or just eerily blank. Also included are animals, such as the blindfolded circus bear curiously balanced between the tops of two ladders; inanimate objects, like the holes in a cement wall that form a humanoid face; and people themselves resembling inanimate objects, such as the 1921 Andre Kertesz black-and-white photo of a bare-chested woman imitating a garden statue. She gracefully shields her eyes with an arm, and holds drapery around her waist with the other, posing before a thick line of trees.

Eyes are obscured by hands, masks, bags, or the heads are off-scene. Others cheat the definition slightly by presenting out-of-focus eyes, like Susan Derges's "Untitled Eye," in which a jewel-like chain of water drops is focused upon in the fore, and an open eye, more watery than the drops, is out-of-focus in the background. Similarly, a nearby video by Dutch photographer Romke Hoogwaerts loops on a torturous wait for in-focus, closed eyes to open. The subject breathes calmly through his nose, eyebrows and eyes twitch teasingly, then as they slowly open, his face turns upward in an off-camera smile while the camera fades out of focus.

Like any well-curated exhibit of a collection of images, thoughtful pairings and groupings were created to enhance similar themes and juxtapose the dissimilar. An image of Rudolf Nureyev by Richard Avedon is positioned near a Robert Mapplethorpe entitled "Kevin," each a silvery, subtly erotic picture of a man with his head thrust back, the architecture of his throat vulnerably and magnetically bared.

Images of babies evoke that irresistible protective instinct, whether they are sleeping peacefully, seemingly abandoned in the woods, huddled together in a school bomb drill or on the street in poverty, or wailing unhappily on a staircase.

The photographs span time, age, and nationality, bringing out the voyeur in each of us. Many faces form self-consciously blank expressions, some are vaguely wincing, a few look bemused, as shown in the wide, wide smirk of Matthew Rolston's "Dennis Quaid."

The collection is filled with intimacy, poetry, and often, an intense focus on gesture. Rachel Grossman's "Covered Eyes" is so vague and gentle it is easy to overlook - the ghostly pale work shows a person covering his or her eyes, with the nose, elbows, and fingertips forming little points as though through cloth. Maizie Gilbert's "Untitled #35" is just as subtle, with an eye squeezed shut, alone on a blank white page, cradled by the twin dark smudges of an under eye bag bulge and the slight swipe of under-brow shadow.

Simple, in-the-moment beauty is captured in many images; in others, a sense of storytelling takes place in a single frame. "Hooded Witness" by an unknown photographer, from an unknown date, depicts a decades-gone courtroom scene with a man sitting at a desk, testifying with a ghost-like white sheet over his head and shoulders. The mind instantly, and perhaps erroneously, injects a mafia story into the vintage scene. The entire identity is concealed, for another purpose, in a portrait of the Hanover Klan that captures rows of cowardly members of the KKK.

The collection contains every mood, from ethereal, to serene, to playful, to somber, but would not be a complete look at humanity without its share of works hailing from the disturbing end of the spectrum, so use your discretion when bringing children or the overly sensitive to the exhibit. The milder end of this includes images of wounded soldiers resting in trenches, and the insinuation of the horrific with people strapped into electric chairs, blinded by leather straps. Another reveals two blindfolded men, confronted by a firing squad. More disturbing still is a partially decayed man half-buried in the ground. Another wall holds a couple of rows of seated, headless figures, including one very large, graphic image of a decapitated nude man.

Near the exit of the exhibit, an eye-shaped nebula greets the viewer. While considered to be a sort of "eye" only based on our vantage point, the image haunts with seeming presence, and provokes consideration of the unfathomable amount of life it might once have held, or might yet hold again.

On Friday and Saturday, October 21 and 22, Eastman House will present events in conjunction with the exhibit, including a lecture and book signing by Hunt, a members' party, and a book fair featuring artists whose work is included in the exhibition. Visit the Eastman House website for more information.

"The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the W.M. Hunt Collection"

Through February 19

George Eastman House, 900 East Ave.

271-3361, eastmanhouse.org

Tue-Sat 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thu 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Sun 1-5 p.m. | $5-$12