HRM - Hudson River Museum

Perched above the Hudson River in Yonkers, the Hudson River Museum stands as a distinctive cultural landmark where art, science, and history converge. Since its founding in 1919, the Museum has remained dedicated to engaging diverse audiences through meaningful experiences that connect regional heritage with broader artistic and intellectual currents. Its location, overlooking the river that shaped American industry, landscape painting, and photography, provides a powerful context for reflection on place, environment, and creativity.

The Museum’s art program spans more than a century of American visual culture, from Hudson River School painting to contemporary installations. Photography has played a significant role in this story from the very beginning. One of the Museum’s founding figures, Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr., was a major force in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photography, and his legacy continues to inform the Museum’s approach to the medium. Through exhibitions, collection highlights, and educational initiatives, photography is presented as both an artistic practice and a vital historical record, capturing the social, industrial, and natural transformations of the Hudson Valley and beyond.

The Hudson River Museum’s photography program often places images in dialogue with painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, encouraging visitors to see photography as an evolving visual language. Works range from early pictorialist approaches to modern and contemporary photographic practices, reflecting shifts in technology, aesthetics, and social awareness. These presentations are complemented by talks, workshops, and school programs that invite audiences to think critically about how photographs shape memory, identity, and our understanding of the world.

Beyond the galleries, the Museum’s interdisciplinary spirit extends to its Planetarium, environmental exhibitions, and historic Glenview Mansion, reinforcing a holistic view of learning and creativity. By integrating photography into this broader framework, the Hudson River Museum honors its origins while looking forward. It remains a place where images, ideas, and experiences come together, offering visitors of all ages new ways to see the Hudson River, the region, and themselves through the lens of art and inquiry.