9:32 a.m., March 19, 2009----At museums across the United States and in Canada, University of Delaware graduate students are helping to preserve important artifacts for future generations, from ancient Egyptian mummies to Neil Armstrong's spacesuit.

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The students are on advanced internships in the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC).

The program, a cooperative effort of the University of Delaware and Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, is one of only five in the United States to offer the master's degree in art conservation.

“The Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation has played a critical role in the development of conservation education and preservation practice in the United States,” said Debra Hess Norris, vice provost for graduate and professional education, chairperson of the Department of Art Conservation, and Henry F. du Pont Chair in Fine Arts at the University of Delaware.

“During their careers, our graduates have been responsible for the examination, technical analysis, conservation, and preservation of such irreplaceable objects as the Declaration of Independence, multiple drafts of the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Star-Spangled Banner, the Treaty of Paris, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and works of art by Old Masters to contemporary artists-from Rembrandt to Van Gogh and Wyeth,” Norris said.

Other notable treasures conserved by graduates of the University of Delaware program, Norris said, are Babe Ruth's baseball contract, the original R2D2 from the movie Star Wars, the world's first photograph, Elvis Presley's 81 gold records, the 1905 Wright Flyer III, the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, and the architectural interiors of Mount Vernon and the Forbidden City.

As a capstone experience in their third and final year of the program, students complete an 11-month internship at a museum or private conservation laboratory in the United States or abroad.

“Since its inception in 1974, WUDPAC has developed a curriculum that addresses basic conservation issues and responds to current trends and changing practices in our field,” said Jae Gutierrez, assistant professor of art conservation and interim coordinator of the program. “We aim to ensure that our learning and teaching goals meet national and international preservation needs. Our internship year is an essential component of this education and training.”

This year's interns are working at Alexandria Conservation Services in Annandale, Va., Arizona State Museum in Tucson, Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services in St. Louis, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution Museum Conservation Institute in Suitland, Md., Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Yale University Gallery of Art in New Haven, Ct., and the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, Ontario.

To see the array of projects the interns are working on and gain some insight into the conservator's world, read the briefs they recently filed for UDaily:

• Bringing a saintly portrait back to life in Missouri
• Protecting a shield from days of yore at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Kasebier photographs conserved at the National Gallery of Canada
• Peering inside a mummy at the Walters Art Museum
• Restoring Southwestern pottery at the Arizona State Museum
• Caring for Maryland's first settlement to Armstrong's spacesuit
• Preserving masterpieces at the Walters Art Museum
• “Big Four” railroad magnate's paintings undergo conservation at Yale
• Studying indigo dyes at the Smithsonian Institution
• Treating a Moorish Islamic ceiling at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Article by Tracey Bryant