Paintings Conservation

Our specialized training in painting conservation includes a combination of scholarly and practical work. Readings and discussion consider the materials and methods of painting conservation, the history of Western painting techniques, and the history, philosophy, and ethics of our practice. Students gain hands-on experience treating paintings from the early Renaissance to the present.

The curriculum includes a foundational introduction to the discipline; a sequence of courses in the Kress Program in Painting Conservation, in which students treat and study an Old Master painting from the Kress Collection; in the structural treatment of paintings on canvas; and in the conservation of modern and contemporary paintings and painted surfaces. Electives introduce topics such as advanced techniques of cleaning and inpainting or the conservation of nineteenth-century paintings.

Close connections with area museums have led to past student placements at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as private practices and institutions further afield.