George Orwell comes up a lot in these Trump-shadowed days. Increasing government surveillance, denials of videotaped truths, and federal collection of DNA data all bring Orwell’s iconic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to mind. That dystopian tale, published in 1949, brought the phrase “Big Brother is watching you” into everyday usage, and comes distressingly closer to mirroring our current breaking-news cycle with each passing day.
New York University’s Kimmel Windows Gallery is on it, presenting Orwell and Truth, on view 24/7 for the rest of the year. Gathering together photos, letters, manuscripts, diary excerpts, and other archival materials, the exhibition (a collaboration between the Orwell Foundation, University College London, and NYU Libraries Special Collections) tracks the journey taken by the India-born English writer and journalist Eric Blair (1903–1950, pen name George Orwell), which led him to writing Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, still considered classics about unchecked power and totalitarianism. Says professor Jean Seaton, president of the Orwell Foundation, “He wrote constantly, deliberately experiencing poverty to report its impacts, living through two world wars, the economic collapse of the 1920s and 1930s, and the rise of fascism.”
Orwell’s son, Richard Blair, and biographer D.J. Taylor (Orwell: The Life) will speak at the opening reception on March 4; the event is free, but registration is required.
George Orwell got a lot done before he died of tuberculosis at the age of 46. Were he alive today, he would no doubt be horrified at the daily reports of escalating incursions on free speech and democracy. But he would also, no doubt, be writing about them. And, as this exhibition illustrates, his legacy still speaks volumes today. ❖
Orwell and Truth
Public viewing 24 hours at New York University’s Kimmel Windows Gallery, West 3rd Street and LaGuardia Place
Through December 1, 2026
