Paintings Conservation

Our specialized training in paintings conservation includes a combination of practical and scholarly work. Students gain hands-on experience treating paintings from the early Renaissance to the present. Every major takes at least one course in the Kress Program in Painting Conservation, in which they treat and study an Old Master painting. Other core courses address the structural treatment of paintings on canvas and the conservation of modern and contemporary paintings and painted surfaces. Electives include advanced techniques of cleaning and inpainting and the conservation of nineteenth-century paintings. Our readings and discussion consider the materials and methods of painting conservation, the history of Western painting techniques, and the history and philosophy of the practice.

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.