UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 17, Page 3
January 23, 1992
Art conservation draws support around the world

     The University's doctoral program in art conservation, the
first of its kind in the nation, has received international support
from individuals and institutions from around the world, according
to Joyce Hill Stoner, chairperson of the Department of Art
Conservation.
     Most recently, a group of 40 Japanese artists, conservators
and administrators made a donation of more than 3 million yen
(approximately $23,000) through the Japan Foundation of Tokyo to
the University's Paul Coremans Endowment Fund in Art Conservation
Research.
     Coremans, 1908-1965, was a noted Belgian scientist who
pioneered the use of scientific technology in art conservation
research and was the founder of the Institute Royal du Patrimoine
Artistique in Belgium.
     Ikuo Hirayama, president of the Tokyo National University of
Fine Arts and Music, was instrumental in organizing the Japanese
donation to the Delaware Art Conservation Program. A noted artist
in his own right, Hirayama has as his goal a "cultural Red Cross"
for the care and maintenance of Japanese works of art around the
world and has a special interest in art conservation.
     Others who helped spearhead the Japanese donation were Masako
Koyano, with whom Stoner trained at New York University, and Kazuo
Yamasaki, a colleague when Stoner was editor of Art and Archaeology
Technical Abstracts.
     In addition to financial support for the program, several
Japanese in the art field have been touring the University of
Delaware/Winterthur Museum art conservation facilities this year,
Stoner said. Three groups, the first headed by Hirayama, have
already visited, and another is scheduled this winter.
     The Japanese have expressed interest in sending students to
Delaware to study art conservation, Stoner said.
     Funds for the Coremans endowment were raised by a benefit
auction of donated art works, held at Christie's in New York last
October, and financed by seed money from Caroline K. Keck of New
York. The auction netted approximately $160,000, Stoner said. Four
other works of art are slated for auction later in the year in
further support of fund the doctoral program.
     The auction was important financially, Stoner said, and also
highlighted the University of Delaware's leadership in the art
conservation field.The doctoral program also has received major
funding from the Mellon and Kress foundations.
     Currently, four graduate students are enrolled in the art
conservation research doctorate program: Emmett Carl Grimm, Eugena
Ordonez, Susan Lake and B.D. Nandadeva.
     Grimm, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, has a
master's degree in art conservation from Delaware and has served as
director of the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts in
Denver and as guest conservator at the J. Paul Getty Museum and
later at the Doerner Institute in Munich. He is investigating and
analyzing the techniques of American artist Albert Pinkham Ryder.
     Born in Ecuador, Ordonez received her master's degree from
Delaware and has been a conservation scientist at the Museum of
Modern Art in New York. She is doing a technical study of the
materials and techniques of the Russian avant-garde painters and
sculptors.
     Lake has her master's degree in art history from the
University of California at Davis. She served as a Mellon Fellow at
the Walters Art Gallery and as conservator of paintings at the
Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D. C. Her research will center on
techniques and materials of 20th-century art.
     Nandadeva, a graduate of the University of Ceylon, received
his master's degree in architectural conservation from the
University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and completed the Graduate
Diploma Course in Rock Art Conservation in Australia. He was an
assistant lecturer in art history at the University of Kelaniya in
Sri Lanka and served as assistant director of the Sigiriya of the
UNESCO-Sri Lankan archaeological conservation program. The focus of
his research is the preservation of outdoor monuments.
                                        - Sue Swyers Moncure