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UD’s art conservation program awarded $1.7 million in grants

Debra Hess Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts
1:35 p.m., Feb. 18, 2004--The University of Delaware’s internationally renowned art conservation program has been awarded nearly $1.7 million in new grants to support faculty and students.

Debra Hess Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts, said the program has been awarded a $1.33 million matching grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for an endowed professorship in conservation science and also for the acquisition of essential analytical equipment.

Under the terms of the grant, UD must match the funds provided by the foundation, according to Norris, who is also chairperson of the Department of Art Conservation and director of the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation.

In addition, the program has been awarded $170,000 from the Leo and Karen Gutmann Foundation to support first- and second-year graduate students and $166,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for education and training in the conservation of objects, textiles and furniture.

Norris said the position funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation meets an important need, with the demand for scientific expertise expanding rapidly in the field of art conservation.

The person who fills the new position will be employed by the University and will work in the Winterthur Scientific Research and Analysis Laboratory, one of the 10 best-equipped museum laboratories in the United States.

"Winterthur is delighted with this additional funding and proud of its long-term partnership with the University in support of art conservation," Gary Kulik, deputy director for academic programs at Winterthur, said.

Norris said the addition of the position will enable the program to more effectively incorporate and fully integrate science into all aspects of the graduate and undergraduate programs.

“We are enormously grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,” Norris said. “This proposed expansion of our art conservation faculty will provide our graduate and undergraduate students access to additional expertise, strengthen our science curriculum and allow our faculty to make fuller use of the superb research facilities at Winterthur and the University.”

Norris added the addition will “enhance opportunities to collaborate with scientists in national and international conservation departments and universities and in allied fields and allow for urgently needed scholarship through an enhanced research and service agenda.”

In addition, the funding will allow the program to purchase analytical equipment for the study of pigments and crystalline polymorphs.

The Gutmann Foundation award provides support to graduate students through housing subsidies, professional organization membership fees, funds for the development of personal libraries and course and conference fees.

The NEH grant provides funding through its Division of Preservation and Access to support five master’s-level students.

The UD art conservation program offers courses to both undergraduate and to graduate students, the latter through the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. The undergraduate program is the only one of its kind in the nation, with concentrations in pre-graduate studies and collections care. The three-year graduate program, founded in 1974, is one of just three such programs in the nation.

The Winterthur/University of Delaware master’s program has about 250 graduates and the vast majority of them are working in the field of art conservation, Norris said.

They head conservation departments at the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of African Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Archives, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

In addition, Norris said graduates have pioneered innovative examination and treatment techniques, developed national standards for the preservation of cultural heritage and preserved a number of national and international cultural icons, including the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Star-Spangled Banner, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Whistler’s Peacock Room.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo by Kathy Atkinson

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