Scientific Examination of Art Modern Techniques in Conservation and Analysis (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Changing Approaches in Art Conservation: 1925 to the Present--Joyce Hill Stoner
Changing Approaches in Art Conservation: 1925 to the Present--Joyce Hill Stoner
Pages 40-57
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From page 40... ...
There was also a hands-off or minimalist movement, increased attention to preventive conservation, and a new role for the conservator as a high-level collaborator. The twenty-first-century conservator should work with museum scien tists to understand the strengths and limitations of a vast array of possibili ties for instrumental analysis, should collaborate with curators, archivists, archaeologists, architects, and artists, and should understand a vocabulary of technology and connoisseurship that may range from the contents of a shipwreck to Indian miniature paintings.
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From page 41... ...
The years between 1925 and 1975 in the United States marked a period of pioneering progress and expansion in the field of art conservation. A special climate of cooperation among scientists, art historians, and restorers developed at the Fogg Art Museum in the late 1920s.
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From page 42... ...
42 SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION OF ART FIGURE 1 Watercolor by George L Stout illustrating the state of the field of art conservation and restoration in 1925.
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From page 43... ...
In the early 1950s members of the original Fogg team of conservators and conservation scientists were dispersed, largely because of funding issues and the attitude of the administration at that time, according to Richard Buck.2 Gettens next founded the technical laboratory at the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in a humble space once used for packing crates, and Richard Buck helped to design the first Regional Conservation Laboratory, the Intermuseum Conservation Association (ICA) at the Allen Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio, which opened in 1953.
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From page 44... ...
At the Fogg Art Museum it was Alan Burroughs.
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From page 45... ...
45 CHANGING APPROACHES IN ART CONSERVATION FIGURE 3 Watercolor by George L Stout illustrating the "Berensonian" dealer/merchant figure of the 1920s.
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From page 46... ...
, triennial or biennial congresses have been held in international locations on special topics ranging from archaeological conservation (in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1975, with attention to the recovery of the warship Wasa) to library and archive conservation (Baltimore, Maryland, in 2002, with accompanying visits to the paper conservation department of the Library of Congress)
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From page 47... ...
IIC began publication of its quarterly journal Studies in Conservation in 1952 and sponsored an international abstracting periodical IIC Abstracts in 1955. Technical Studies published by the Fogg from 1932-1942 had also contained abstracts of the international literature, and Gettens compiled Abstracts of Technical Studies in Art and Archaeology (published by the Freer in 1955)
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From page 48... ...
Current conservation graduate students can readily spend our new Gutmann Foundation grants of $3,000 on books in their specialties; I doubt I could have spent $300 in 1968. The American Group of the IIC began in 1960 (see Figure 6)
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From page 49... ...
In the summer of 1985 the Getty Conservation Institute took up FIGURE 7 The Conservation Analytical Laboratory building of the Smithsonian Institution (now known as SCMRE, Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education)
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From page 50... ...
As of 1994 there were at least 50 programs in 30 countries in the fine arts and another 50 in archaeological materials, books, decorative arts, and musical instruments according to a directory co-published by the Getty Conservation Institute. The Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University accepted its first four graduate students in 1960; we students studied in the basements of the Duke mansion at One East 78th Street.
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From page 51... ...
51 CHANGING APPROACHES IN ART CONSERVATION FIGURE 8 Watercolor by George L Stout illustrating the state of the field of art conservation in 1975.
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From page 52... ...
Methods of analysis have become far more sophisticated than just X radiography or examination with ultraviolet light; the Sackler conference of 2003 at the National Academy of Sciences elaborated on many of these excellent resources. I will note that for my own specialty, a professional paper on paintings conservation is now rarely without cross-sections indicating the layered buildup of paint films, dirt, and varnishes shown in normal and in ultraviolet illumination, often with supporting Fourier transform infra red (FTIR)
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From page 53... ...
In 1992 I surveyed practicing paintings conservators in the United States; conservators who once said they had formerly lined nearly every painting they treated now reported lining only about 10 percent of their current treatments.4 Teaching treatments became more difficult, as there was now a complex menu of choices -- loose linings, drop linings, edge linings, hand linings, humidity treatments, suction tables, local suction platforms, and more highly controlled vacuum tables -- and lining is only one of many types of treatments used for paintings. We also have a complex menu of new adhesives and new electronic tools; we have "pharmacists of conservation" who specialize in supplying new spatulas, sampling kits, retouching supplies, and cleaning gel ingredients.
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From page 54... ...
Susan Heald, a textile conservator of the National Museum of the American Indian, gave a memorable talk for our graduate students. Heald worked with the Siletz regalia makers to stabilize pieces before the dance and get them ready for dancing during the dance house dedication ceremony.
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From page 55... ...
Wharton brought current theory from material culture studies, ethnography, and a reflexive stance to the study. He noted, "The recognition of cultural relativism and contested meanings embedded in material objects has begun to enter conservation literature."11 In a landmark conservation conference in 1980 at the National Gallery of Canada, conservators, artists, scientists, and curators discussed issues relevant to the conservation of contemporary art.
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From page 56... ...
She has funded and thereby created new conservation science positions in graduate training programs and major museum conservation laboratories. She has also imaginatively provided underwriting for talented younger conservation professionals, such as Philip Klausmeyer, who has returned to graduate study in order to enhance the scientific capabilities and instrumentation at his home institution, the Worcester Art Museum.
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From page 57... ...
Thomas Chase and Joyce Hill Stoner, September 4, 1975. (The FAIC oral history archive is housed at the Winterthur Museum Library, Winterthur, Del.)
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