The Art Conservation Profession: A Brief (Modern) History
Is there a difference between art conservation and art restoration? A difference between a Conservator and a Restorer? The answer to this isn’t as straight forward as one may think… let’s approach this with a bit of history and context.
Paintings are made of mostly organic carbon-based materials – materials such as woods, textiles, nut & seed oils as binders, pigments that can be insect or plant dye based (in addition to inorganic mineral-based pigments), and resins. As with most things in this world, these materials degrade and deteriorate over time in common every-day environmental conditions leading to chemical reactions at the molecular level, including oxidation and acid hydrolysis. These mechanisms can lead to desiccation and embrittlement of canvas supports, cracking, curling or crumbling of paint layers, fading of fugitive dye-based pigments, and yellowing of natural resin varnishes to name a few. In addition to natural degradation, there are also damages that can occur from disasters (fires, floods, etc), accidents, or failed human interventions. The fact that we still have paintings today from centuries and even millennia past is often due to the skilled work of art restorers. While art restorers have existed for centuries (the first written accounts of doing this as an actual profession is in the 1700s) they were usually either artists or craftsmen who were familiar with artist’s materials, gallery owners who tried their hand at sprucing up paintings to make them look more presentable for sale, or in a more official capacity, museum curators who cared for collections. There also existed a broad spectrum of techniques ranging from safe to damaging, and also a broad spectrum of practitioners’ skill levels: some performed masterful work, while others were amateurs whose dabbling sometimes resulted in irreversible damage to items of historical or cultural value.
The first “art conservation” department established in a North American museum was the Department of Technical Research, founded in 1928 at the Fogg Museum, at Harvard University… notice it was not yet called a conservation department. Curators that specialized in technical art history (the history of art materials, rather than art subject matter) were generally in charge of these departments, and these individuals would also study restoration techniques. For the first time, science - in the form of technical analysis and an understanding of physical chemistry (degradation mechanisms, solubility parameters, the list goes on…) - began to inform treatment directions and decisions. This new informed knowledge, along with a push towards conservation of art pieces: preserving and respecting the historical and original materials that made up each artwork, gave birth to the specialized profession of the Conservator. The term “Conservator” really only starting gaining traction roughly after World War 2.
The latter half of the 20th century observed a shift from historical artisanal craft to chemistry and science-based approaches in laboratories. In the early 1970s there was a big push within the North American fine art and museum sectors to establish Art Conservation as a recognized profession, and at this time we saw the establishment of North America’s main conservation associations, including the American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the Canadian Association of Professional Conservators (CAPC), and the Canadian chapter of the International Institute for Conservation (now known as the Canadian Association for Conservation, or CAC). The CAPC established the world’s first national accreditation system for conservators, a process that requires its applicants to be reviewed and evaluated by a Board of Examiners. The 1970s also saw the establishment of North America’s university-level masters programs for Art Conservation, including Canada’s only Master of Art Conservation program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. New inventions and developments of techniques took place, as practitioners had access to new synthetic materials designed for specific profession-related uses. During this time, there was an effort made by both academics and museum professionals in this field to distance themselves from the unregulated wilderness of the traditional Art Restorer, and brand themselves as Art Conservators, based in science, and bound by professionally established ethics.
The past 50 years have shown a variety of both triumphs and shortcomings of this shift. On the positive side, awareness of high standards was established in the care of items of cultural heritage. A focus was placed on the stabilization and preservation of historical objects and their original material composition, rather than the “sprucing up” of an old item in an attempt to make it look new again. A skilled conservator should approach every object with careful considerations of material compatibility, reversibility and/or re-treatability, and historical sensitivity. Compensations should be done with reversible and detectable materials, and with care to integrate losses with the surrounding original composition, rather than overpainting and obscuring portions of the original. On the other hand, the distancing from a rich history of art restoration resulted in an obfuscation of the profession to the layperson, and a dependence upon titles and semantics rather than attribution of actual skill. Many historic and traditional treatment methods that proved to withstand the test of time were rejected. A focus was placed on academic training, which indeed is necessary and foundational, but is not solely sufficient to begin independent or unsupervised practice. Despite the establishment of a national accreditation system that just recently celebrated its 50th anniversary since its inception, in Canada anyone can still enter the profession and call themselves a conservator without any proper educational or apprenticeship training, and this has resulted in ongoing mistreatment or damage to items of cultural heritage, even to this present day. Also, a major focus on preventive care and minimal intervention in museums has resulted in an attrition of bench skills, meaning some professional conservators today (even some museum professionals) may still not have the experience or skill necessary to perform major interventions due to a lack of hands-on practical experience. So does an unqualified practitioner automatically make them a “restorer”? Or a highly skilled practitioner make them a “conservator”? I would say their title doesn’t matter as much as their years of hands-on experience in treatment and refinement of hand skills, their adherence to conservation principles and ethics, and their foundational understanding of chemistry, material interactions, and degradation mechanisms. After decades of rejection of the term “restoration”, the profession seems to be moving back to recognizing the term as acceptable, as long the restorations are done with conservation principles in mind. Also, the French-speaking world never actually threw out the term, as the French term for conservator remains as “restaurateur”, and the French term “conservateur” actually translates as curator. “Preservation” generally refers to preventative care, including climate controls and lux levels, “Conservation” refers to stabilization of a deteriorating object while taking care to preserve all original elements, and “Restoration” refers to bringing an object aesthetically back to presentation condition, which can include inpainting / compensation for losses.
If you are in Canada and have an artwork or item of value that you are looking to get treated, the best place to check first is the Canadian Association for Professional Conservators (CAPC) website, which allows you to search by area for a conservator whose work and practice has been peer-reviewed and meets the minimum standards for safe, ethical, and competent practice in this country.
