15th Annual Kathleen Ridder Conference
ART OF THE MATTER:
DOING TECHNICAL ART HISTORY
26 & 27 October 2007
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
The conference will be devoted to technical art history as an emerging
field. The event will include lectures by professionals whose work
focuses on defining and demonstrating technical art history, poster
presentations selected from student and professional submissions, and
demonstrations in historic techniques and materials.
FRIDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2007
3:00pm, Campus Center Carroll Room (CC 208), demonstrations of historic
methods and materials, and poster presentations.
4:30pm, Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall, keynote address by David
Bomford, Associate Director for Collections, J. Paul Getty Museum (formerly
Senior Paintings Conservator, The National Gallery, London)
5:30pm, Atrium, Smith College Museum of Art, reception.
SATURDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2007
Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall
9:00-9:15am: Welcome by Christine M. Shelton, Director of the Smith
College Project on Women and Social Change and Professor of Exercise and
Sport Studies, and Jessica Nicoll, Director and Chief Curator, Smith College
Museum of Art
SESSION 1
Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall
9:15-9:30am: Session Chair: Michele Marincola, Sherman Fairchild Chairman
and Professor of Conservation, Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine
Arts, New York University
9:30-10:00am: K. Aslïhan Yener, Director, Turkish Ministry of Culture and
Tourism and the Mustafa Kernal University Excavations to Alalakh; and
Professor Anatolian Archaeology, University of Chicago, Bull Leaping Scenes,
Fortresses, and Silver Plated Ivories from Late Bronze Age Alalakh
10:00-10:30am: Mark Abbe, Research Fellow, Sherman Fairchild Center for
Objects Conservation, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Investigating the Polychromy
and Aesthetics of Ancient Roman Marble Sculpture
10:30-11:00am: Francesca G. Bewer, Research Curator, Straus Center for
Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard University Art Museums,
Reconstructing the Fabrication of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise” from the Florence
Baptistry
11:00-11:30am: Tony Sigel, Conservator of Sculpture/Objects, Straus Center
for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard University Art Museums,
Investigating the Techniques of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Terracotta Sculpture
11:30am-12:00noon: Tea/coffee break with submission of written questions
12:00-12:30pm: Questions and discussion
12:30-1:30pm: Lunch for conference participants and registrants at the Campus
Center Carroll Room (CC208)
SESSION 2
Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall
1:45-2:00pm: Session Chair: Jilleen Nadolny, Associate Professor,
Department of Conservation, IAKH, University of Oslo
2:00-2:30pm: Ron Spronk, Head, Department of Art, Professor of Art History,
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych:
Background, Organization and Results
2:30-3:00pm: Anne van Grevenstein, Director, Stichting Restauratie Atelier
Limburg, Professor in the Practice of Restoration, University of Amsterdam,
The Role of the Reconstruction of Painting Techniques in the Training of Paintings
Conservators in the Netherlands
3:00-3:30pm: Robin Clark, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Saint
Louis Art Museum, Archeology of Images: Form, Content, and Process in the Work of
Julie Mehretu
3:30-4:00: Tiarna Doherty, Associate Conservator of Paintings, Paintings
Conservation, J. Paul Getty Museum, The Collaborative Role of Paintings
Conservation in Museum Exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum
4:00-4:30pm: Tea/coffee break with submission of written questions
4:30-5:00pm: Final Summation: Maryan Ainsworth, Curator of European
Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art
5:00-5:30pm: Questions and discussion
The field that is now “Technical Art History” began in the latter part of the
19th century with the recognition that science is a powerful and essential ally in
understanding and evaluating works of art. Persuading the “scientific lion to lie
down with the art historical lamb,” to quote art historian Erwin Panofsky, has
been a difficult and often strife-ridden undertaking. In this country, Edward
Forbes introduced the concept of technical studies in fine arts at the Fogg
Museum at Harvard in 1927 and promoted imaginative collaborations between
art historians, scientists and conservators. Since the founding of the first
conservation training program on a graduate level in 1960 at New York
University, the field of Art Conservation has matured considerably. With
growing numbers of conservators, and with increasingly sophisticated methods
of technical examination, the need to redefine and to enlarge the
interdisciplinary foundation of the field has also become apparent. In 1995, in
response to these developments, David Bomford, Senior Restorer at the
National Gallery in London, introduced the term “Technical Art History,”
which he defined as “a wide-ranging, inclusive evocation of the making of art
and the means by which we throw light on that process—generally, but not
exclusively, concerned with the physical materials of works of art and how they
are prepared, used and manipulated.”
Conference sponsored by the Smith College: The Project on Women and Social
Change, The Smith College Museum of Art, The Department of Art, The
Department of Chemistry, and the Office of the Provost.
Conference Planning Committee: Sarah Belchetz-Swenson, Lâle Aka Burk,
Alexandra Telford Dale ’07, David Dempsey, Craig Felton, Kathleen Gauger,
Jessica Nicoll, Christine Shelton, and Phoebe Dent Weil.
Registration information and information on submitting a proposal for a poster
presentation will be available soon at: www.smith.edu/wsc