Lara Kaplan

Biography

Lara Kaplan earned an M.S. from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC) and a B.A. in Fine Arts and Linguistics from Rice University. Her work centers on the care of organic materials, which includes plant- and animal-based organics as well as plastics. In 2019, she was appointed Objects Conservator at Winterthur Museum and Affiliated Assistant Professor at WUDPAC, where she is responsible for teaching organic materials in the first- and second-year curricula and supervising advanced graduate students in the documentation, analysis and treatment of three-dimensional objects. 

Prior to this, she operated a conservation private practice in Baltimore, Maryland, working with private clients, galleries and institutions to assess and preserve collections in a range of contexts. Proximity to Washington, DC, and Philadelphia enabled contract work with major institutions such as the National Museum of Asian Art, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Park Service, and the Barnes Foundation among others. Conservation education was also a major part of her work. In addition to serving as part-time affiliated faculty at WUDPAC, she taught basic conservation and collections care courses and guest lectured at Towson University, the Corcoran College of Art + Design, the Maryland Institute College of Art and Johns Hopkins University.

Her current research interests include visual and proteomic techniques for animal identification, light sensitivity of organic materials, the history and treatment of 18th-century shellwork, collaborative approaches to the conservation of barkcloth, and the role of values-based and self-reflective approaches in conservation education. She is also serving as lead editor on a new conservation text The Care of Plant-Based Material Culture: A Conservation Handbook, to be published by Routledge in 2027.