Future art conservators focus on photos

Five undergraduates from UD, Hampton and Lincoln universities and Sarah Lawrence College got extensive hands-on experience in art conservation during a four-week internship on campus this summer.

In its second year, the Art Conservation Summer Institute concentrated on photo conservation techniques. Coursework included independent research projects, field trips to museums, data collection and analysis and group presentations.

Overseen and coordinated by Jae Gutierrez, photograph conservator and instructor in art conservation, the program was intended to provide participants with a grounding in what they will need for entrance to graduate art conservation programs while also giving them experience in photo conservation techniques. As part of the Paul R. Jones Art Collection Education Initiative, the venture also supports the University’s Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art through its educational and scholarly focus.

To this end, besides the lab work, field trips and tutorials, all five participants drew on everything they learned throughout their stay and completed condition reports on black-and-white photographs from the Jones Collection.

“The purpose of this internship is to expose students to the field of conservation or to a related field,” Gutierrez says. “But it’s also to expose participants to the graduate art conservation program at UD and to create diversity on campus.”

Over the course of the month, students learned about conservation processes, goals, ethics and practical lab techniques.

“A big part of our role as conservators is to preserve the history behind the work,” Gutierrez says, adding that conserving a work of art means maintaining its historical integrity and context, even if that requires conservators to keep the stains and stress marks. Along these lines, coursework during the first week of the institute focused on identifying photographic processes and conservation ethics.

“We learned how to distinguish different photographic processes, which determine what conservation measures will be taken,” Gutierrez says. “A lot of times, art conservators are described as part art historian, part scientist and part artist, because they have to have the technical and hand skills to do repairs in the lab, but they also have to have a sense of an object’s history and a working knowledge of chemistry.”

To bolster the history component, each of the five participants researched a black-and-white print from the Jones Collection. After a careful analysis, participants completed condition reports that took into account their print’s process, condition and context. They presented their reports at a peer symposium on the final day of the program.

Photos from the UD archives study collection, selected specifically for repairs, also kept participants busy with hands-on work in the photo conservation lab in
Old College.

Corners of photos, which typically suffer the most damage, were carefully mended with special archival tape and adhesive materials, and participants laboriously stippled in leaves on trees, masonry on buildings and pieces of sky with special paints. They also learned indisputably the most important rule of conservation: Work gently enough so reversals are always possible.

Field trips to Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Lunder Conservation Center and the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) in Fairfax, Va., further rounded out the course.

“After learning the first week about process identification, starting with daguerreotypes from 1839 to contemporary digital prints, we worked on assessing the condition of objects,” Gutierrez says, explaining the two-day collection survey undertaken at UNCF, during which participants assessed 8,000 prints and negatives. This experience provided another opportunity for knowledge to be practically applied, she says, and students further cemented what they learned with reports compiled for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Preservation Summit, to be held this October at UD.

“This has been a nice opportunity fairly close to home for me,” Sherita Sargusinga, a participant from Washington, D.C., who graduated from Lincoln University with a bachelor’s degree in art, says of her experience in the summer program. “I hope to work in art education at museums, and this internship has helped me explore other options, as well.”

Janiya Snape, a participant from Boston who graduated from Hampton University with a bachelor’s degree in art, says the internship helped her shape her career plans, especially as she investigates possibilities in museum work.

“I was drawn to this program because I hoped for an opportunity to explore the field of conservation,” Snape says.

For UD art conservation major Lauren Bradley, AS ’08, who intends to enter the joint UD-Winterthur art conservation program next year, the internship offered the opportunity to sample a full-time career in art conservation before committing to a formal program or career.

“I’m getting experience,” Bradley says. “I worked in a painting conservation lab last semester, so working with the photographs was a good opportunity to get more experience.”

Gutierrez says that participants’ reactions are rewarding—and in keeping with the ultimate goal of the program. “It’s a bit daunting to keep five people with different aspirations excited and enthusiastic,” she says. “I think the program has been varied enough to keep the level of interest high.”

—Becca Hutchinson