Melissa Tedone, who is book and library conservator at Winterthur and
a WUDPAC affiliated faculty member, said the generous funding from the
Mellon Foundation recognizes library and archives conservations place
among its sister specialties in the art conservation training programs.
Our students will benefit from this cross-pollination across
specialties as well as the collaborative, inter-institutional training,
Tedone said.
On behalf of the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts,
New York University, I wish to express my excitement in the official
formation of the LACE consortium, said Margaret Holben Ellis, chair and
Eugene Thaw professor of paper conservation at the Institute of Fine
Arts at NYU. We have successfully partnered in this endeavor for many
years and are heartened by the Mellon Foundations endorsement of our
efforts.
Lauren Hackworth Petersen, interim associate dean for the humanities
in UDs College of Arts and Sciences, described the LACE collaboration
as an exemplary inter-institutional program of study [that] will be
instrumental in training future conservators dedicated to preserving
libraries and archives worldwide.
The three conservation programs involved, she said, have long been recognized as leaders in the field.
The University of Delaware extends its gratitude to the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation and to the collaborating institutions for this unique
and important opportunity for our graduate students, Petersen said.
Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation
Internationally recognized, WUDPAC is a three-year program that is
one of only five graduate programs in art conservation in North America
and one of only two jointly sponsored between a university and a museum
research library.
Students, who earn a Master of Science in Art Conservation degree,
make use of the resources of both the University and Winterthur Museum
and Library, in what has been described as a seamless partnership.
Each student specializes in a conservation area, including furniture,
objects, paintings, paper, photographic materials, textiles, and library
and archival materials.
The curriculum is designed to educate and train conservation
professionals who can carry out the examination, analysis, stabilization
and treatment of art and artifacts, speak to general principles of
collection care and have a broad academic background in science and the
humanities.
WUDPAC alumni work in prestigious institutions across the country and
the world, preserving important cultural and historical works.
The programas well as numerous other programs throughout UDhas
benefited from the Mellon Foundations generosity in many areas,
including support for graduate students and programs in which UD
conservators work internationally with students and professionals in
fields such as photograph conservation. In addition, a Mellon grant in
2011 helped launch UDs curatorial track for doctoral art history
students, one of only a handful of programs in the country to prepare
future curators for careers in specialized historical art fields.
Article by Ann Manser, with information from SUNY Buffalo State College; photos by Evan Krape