Author: Ryan Winfield

Authenticating Art

AAA (Appraisers Association of America – not the driving people!) is sponsoring an event called “Authenticating Art: Current Problems and Proposed Solutions” with CAA.

From the flyer:

When it comes to art, “Is it real?” is a question that interests everyone from casual museum-goers to arts professionals. Answering the question can involve historical research, connoisseurship, sophisticated scientific analysis and more. But the question is not only an academic or philosophical one. (Is a Warhol a “War- hol” if Warhol himself never touched it) In an art market where millions–and sometimes tens of millions–can hang in the balance, who is willing to risk being wrong in offering an opinion about authenticity? For those who do offer opinions and even warranties, what are they risking, and what–if anything–should they be risking? What of those who create fakes? The College Art Association has been considering the promotion of “best practices” in authenticating art.

More details and registration is available on AAA’s site>>

Get to know your AIC Reps – AIC Secretary

Lisa Bruno is currently serving as the Secretary on the AIC Board. In addition to fulfilling regular duties of a member of the AIC board of directors, the secretary also ensures that records are maintained of all AIC business, annual general meetings, and AIC board meetings. She first became involved in AIC as Objects Specialty Group Program Chair in 2001. She finds it enlightening to discover how AIC advocates for conservators and our profession, and feels that it is a privilege to help play a small part.

Lisa is currently the Head Objects Conservator at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (you can see what they are working on via the lab’s blog), and also works in private practice at Amann and Estabrook Conservation in NYC. She is a graduate of the Art Conservation Department at the University of Delaware, Winterthur Museum. In her free time Lisa competes in triathalons and is in training for the upcoming New Jersey Devilman Half Ironman Lite being held on May 8th, right before this year’s AIC Meeting. Come to the meeting to see if Lisa survived!

A few important resources

Just a quick post to let you know about some important AIC documents that have just been posted on the AIC site:

-2010 AIC and FAIC financial information is available on www.conservation-us.org/aboutaic

-You’ll also find a link to the 2009 Internal Advisory Group Meeting notes at www.conservation-us.org/aboutaic

-In the future meetings section of www.conservation-us.org/meetings, we’ve posted the results of a recent survey on potential future Annual Meeting topics

Enjoy – and let us know what you think!

Get to know your AIC Reps – AIC E-Editor

At the 2009 AIC annual meeting Issues Session several people commented that it would be nice for members to understand the workings of AIC a bit better. The best way to really learn about how AIC works is to get involved but, I hope that by profiling AIC Board members, staff and here on the blog, our members will find that they understand a bit better what people are doing to serve their profession and their colleagues. Maybe you’ll be inspired to volunteer if you aren’t already! Check back here regularly for further posts.

Now for a bit about me, the AIC E-editor…

The launch of the new AIC website in the spring of 2009 finally gave the us a platform onto which we could realistically take advantage of current technological capabilities, meaning that this was an exciting year to become AIC E-editor.

The E-editor job signifies that within AIC’s structure there are three ways in which we produce and disseminate content (the journal – JAIC, our newsletter – AIC News and, now, our website and associated online resources such as CoOL). As such I am a member of the AIC Publications Committee where I advise on and maintain standards for AIC publications in regards to electronic formats. I report to AIC’s Executive Director, Eryl Wentworth, and, on the AIC Board, the Director of Communications. On a day-to-day basis I work mostly with Brett Rodgers, AIC’s terrific Publications Manager.

One of my primary responsibilities is providing oversight of the website content with particular emphasis on the development of content for our audience of professional conservators. I work with Brett to both maintain site content as well as helping generate new content that will be of interest to our members and the general public. Some examples of this include:

    – Soliciting and editing submissions for the Stories in Conservation feature on the AIC website – please contact me if you have a Story to submit!

    – Working with various AIC committees and task forces to help them generate useful professional content for the website. In the past year I have been working with the Oral History Project, the Green Task Force and the Emergency Response committee.

    – Communicating with the Specialty Group officers regarding the website and its use. Discussions are currently underway on how to best integrate SG websites with the AIC site. Additionally, we want to help SGs use the capabilities of the AIC website and database to their advantage if your SG is working on a project where the website, web publishing or the wiki site may be of use, please let me know.

    – Liaising with the AIC Wiki catalogue group. We are excited about the transition of the SG catalogues to the wiki site and look forward to helping other AIC members learn how to use this platform for the benefit of all of our members.

In my position I am also encouraged to provide general feedback on how AIC is or should be using other web resources such as social networking sites. The creation of this blog is an example of this effort. We hope that our membership will use this site as a way to interact with colleagues across specialty groups to discuss issues of interest to us all. Additionally, now that AIC has assumed responsibility for CoOL I am also excited to be part of the group that will begin to assess how we can be appropriate stewards of this important resource for the international preservation community.

In short, my job is to be a liaison between my colleagues in the AIC membership, and the AIC Staff and Board. I hope that everyone will feel free to contact me if I can be of service.

When I am not working on AIC projects I am a partner in A.M. Art Conservation, LLC, a private practice in the New York area that provides preservation consulting, conservation treatment and collection management services to institutions and individuals. I am Co-Chair of the Integrated Pest Management Working group which produces the www.museumpests.net website and mother to twin boys and a baby girl.

Take a Stand! AIC Position Papers Online

With improvements to our expanding website, the time has come to try to advocate for our common goals. The AIC should take a stand on timely issues and let its viewpoint be known. Position papers provide a means for asking for support of conservation issues or expressing an opinion about a controversial topic. The audience for the position papers is intended to be the general public, collectors, museum personnel and browsers to our website – not conservation professionals. Position paper topics should be generally agreed upon by the conservation community. The blog or specialty group list serves are a better place for discussion of material that is not agreed upon within the conservation community.

The AIC has one excellent position paper addressing Conservation and Preservation in Collecting Institutions that has been online since 2002. This paper is located in About AIC (scroll down to Position Papers) or can be found by searching for “position paper” on the website. A practice of producing additional position papers has not been established, however, several new position papers are currently being developed and a draft procedure for preparing these papers is being tested. Ideally the papers will be persuasive, roughly 2-3 pages in length and have a brief bibliography that is accessible online. If appropriate, sidebars with short stories, images or supporting facts may be added. Volunteer authors are at work on papers on the following topics:

    . Addressing the recent loss of training positions

    . Encouraging emergency planning and support of AIC-CERT

    . Stolen or looted archaeological artifacts

    . Potentially changing museum standards in response to environmental sustainability

It is envisioned that the position papers will be professionally edited and adopted by an AIC Board vote prior to being posted on the website. The position papers would remain posted until outdated or no longer relevant.

If you have ideas for topics, would like to participate or have suggestions or questions regarding position papers, contact Meg Craft at mcraft@thewalters.org.

Guardians of World Treasures Sign Salzburg Declaration on the Conservation and Preservation of Cultural Heritage

From an IMLS press release:

Washington, DC-On October 31, 2009, 59 cultural heritage leaders from 32 countries, including representatives of Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Asia, unanimously passed the Salzburg Declaration on the Conservation and Preservation of Cultural Heritage (http://www.imls.gov/pdf/Salzburg_Declaration%20.pdf). The declaration was the culmination of “Connecting to the World’s Collections: Making the Case for Conservation and Preservation of our Cultural Heritage,” the Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS) held October 28 – November 1, 2009 under the auspices of the U.S. federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and SGS. The declaration will be widely distributed to cultural ministries and other policymaking entities; it has already been translated into Arabic.

The seminar built on the findings of “Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action,” IMLS’s multi-year initiative on collections care, putting them into a global context. It combined presentations by leading experts in conservation and preservation throughout the world with small working groups tasked with making practical recommendations for future action on specific topics. Those guiding topics included emergency preparedness, education and training, public awareness, new preservation approaches, and assessment and planning. One evening was devoted to a fireside chat on “conservation in the developing world,” with a panel of participants representing Benin, Iraq, Mexico, Singapore, and Trinidad and Tobago.

At the opening session, Vinod Daniel, Seminar Co-leader and Head of Culture Heritage & Science Initiatives at the Australia Museum, noted that he had never attended a meeting “as diverse as this, with people from this many parts of the world, as cross-disciplinary as this.” A report summarizing the discussions and outlining the recommendations will be published later this year, sent to key stakeholders around the world, and made available online at www.imls.gov and www.salzburgglobal.org.

The Mummy Returns

GCI and Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) are hooking up for a five-year collaboration to conserver King Tut’s tomb.

“King Tut has magic that we must conserve for future generations. I was happy when we CT scanned the mummy of King Tut in order to reveal the secrets of his family, but now I am even more thrilled to invite the Getty Conservation Institute to restore his tomb and return the glory of the boy king,” said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, and Vice-Minister of Culture. ” I am happy that the GCI will look at the tomb and preserve its beautiful scenes.”

Read more about the project on the Getty’s field projects page>>

Toby Raphael: 1951 – 2009

We are saddened to post the following press release regarding the passing of longtime AIC member Toby Raphael.

West Virginia Retired National Park Service Senior Conservator Toby Raphael Dies

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. – A jacket owned by Red Cloud. A dress worn by the Sioux war chief’s wife. Bear skin and lion skin rugs owned by Theodore Roosevelt. George Washington’s tent. John Brown’s Bible. Leather steamer trunks of immigrants passing through Ellis Island. Even advice on how to illuminate the Mona Lisa.

All of these, plus countless more artifacts – most in the care of America’s national parks and museums as well as those of nations across the world – have felt the hands and expertise of Toby Raphael, retired National Park Service senior conservator who died Wednesday at his home in Shepherdstown.

Raphael’s death at age 58 left his family and friends in shock. Survivors include his wife, Hali Taylor, head librarian at Shepherdstown Public Library, and sons, Jonathan, 23, of Boston and Seth, 26, of Monterey, Calif.

He was born in Hollywood in 1951, and graduated with double bachelor’s degrees in visual arts and Latin American studies from the University of California-San Diego in 1973, and a master’s degree in museum studies from George Washington University in 1977.

Until earlier this year, Raphael worked as a museum specialist at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. From 1978 to 2007, he held positions from museum specialist to senior conservator at the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center in Charles Town, W.Va., work that had him crisscrossing the country from national park to national park throughout his NPS career conserving historic artifacts.

“I saw what Toby was doing and tried to follow in his footsteps,” said Susan Page of Takoma Park, Md., a senior paper conservator at The National Archives. “He had a good formula for success. Toby set the standard for conservation of museum objects.”

Considered by some experts to be the foremost leather conservator, Raphael wrote “Exhibition Conservation Guidelines,” a guidebook for use in the field “that affected conservation around the world,” said Theresa Voellinger, also an NPS paper conservator and colleague of Raphael’s. “It’s the first book of its kind to put organization on how we think about exhibits as a preservation method.”

Voellinger said Raphael traveled extensively in Central and South America as well, often at his own expense, to help Spanish-speaking conservators and historians working in small museums and institutions to protect and preserve their culture. He was fluent in Spanish.

“He taught me a lot about hands-on conservation and how to work with leather,” said Barbara Cumberland, an NPS objects conservator. “It was a privilege working with Toby all those years.”

Raphael’s specialty was Native American artifacts. He was also known for his finely worked leather purses.

On the personal side, Raphael enjoyed the companionship of a host of friends, social and professional. His son Seth spoke of his father’s penchant for always stepping up to help those in society’s lower stratum – the poor, the working class.

“I’ve never met anybody with a deeper interest in people,” said Bruce Dahlin of Shepherdstown, a longtime family friend.

“Toby was a magnet in drawing people out, caring and passionate about what he believed in. If you weren’t in his camp, he let you have it,” said Debi Taylor of San Diego, Raphael’s sister-in-law. “He inspired us to live a dream, to ask about life, and encouraged us to see and access more of it. He inspired so many people.”

Raphael’s death “was a real shocker,” Al Levitan, another NPS colleague and longtime friend, said in a telephone interview Thursday while on a trip with his wife, Jane, in Alabama. “It’s strange being away from the community at a time like this or to talk about Toby in the past tense. Toby left a legacy in his community and in the conservation world. He was a mentor to many. He will be missed by a wide range of people.”

Even recently, Raphael was volunteering with the Hispanic Outreach Services sponsored by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Martinsburg, W.Va., said Elizabeth McGowen of Shepherdstown, a fellow volunteer.

“Toby was my newest best friend,” McGowen said. “He was the sweetest, most generous person, a treasure, a pillar in the Shepherdstown community.”

Services will be Nov. 14 at 2 p.m. at the Presbyterian Meeting Hall, and followed by a pot luck reception at the Raphael Taylor home on Billmyer Road.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Hispanic outreach service program.