Grants from public and private foundations also allow UD's graduate students to study and conduct research around the globe.
For example, this summer, eight art conservation graduate students shared their expertise and learned new methods of art conservation in a variety of venues from Japan to Turkey.
Five of the art conservation students were sponsored by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which supports the history, conservation and enjoyment of European art, architecture and archaeology from antiquity to the 19th Century.
Mary Coughlin worked with a conservation team at English Heritage, headquartered in London, focusing on the care and maintenance of historic properties and the effect of dust on collections. All third-year students serve as interns during their final year in the program, and Coughlin will be at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Karl Knauer is interested in the treatment of waterlogged material and X-rays of excavated metalwork from the Roman, medieval and Viking periods. He plans to specialize in the preservation of archaeological material and was assigned to the York Archaeological Trust in England. This fall, he begins his internship at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Sheila Payaqui headed Down Under to work on the conservation of contemporary aboriginal art at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia. An object laboratory technician at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Payaqui participated in a wide range of conservation activities, such as maintenance of the outdoor sculpture collection, and X-rays of more than 30 wax sculptures by Edgar Degas. In January 2002, she worked with a conservation team in Chile, documenting and conserving religious sculpture in rural churches. She will intern at Harpers Ferry Center, National Park Service.
Anya Shutov was an intern at the Painting Conservation Laboratory in Moscow during the summer of 2001 and the Swiss Institute for Art Research in 2003. With an interest in the restoration of older paintings, particularly icons, she spent summer 2004 in Bulgaria working in this field. She will spend her third year in the paintings conservation laboratory at the Yale University Art Gallery.
Tina Wasson worked in object and sculpture conservation, learning about new laser cleaning systems for stone objects, three-dimensional laser scanning and other treatment methods, at the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside in Liverpool, England. This fall, she will intern at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Mo.
Other students in the art conservation program studied overseas during the summer, too. Anne Peranteau was supported by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation to study Asian textile construction and manufacture. Brian Baade and Natasha Loeblich received grants from the Annette Kadae Charitable Trust to work on decorative art conservation projects, such as the preservation of painted furniture and architectural surfaces, in a chateau in central France. Kate Cuffari took part in an archaeological dig, sponsored by Harvard and Cornell universities, in the ancient city of Sardis, Turkey.
--Sue Moncure