Research Centers

The Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies provides analysis and treatments for the Harvard Art Museums’ more than 250,000 objects in all media, ranging in date from antiquity to the present, from Europe, North and South America, North Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. In addition to serving the conservation needs of the Art Museums, the Straus Center also operates as a regional conservation facility, offering fee-for-service treatments, surveys, and consultations for museums, libraries, historical societies, historical sites, and private art collectors.

Training and education are fundamental activities of the Straus Center, maintaining a tradition established at its founding over 80 years ago, when it became the first institution in the United States to use scientific methods to study artists’ materials and techniques. The center’s Advanced-Level Training Program provides formal hands-on training in the conservation of works on paper, paintings, and objects and sculpture, as well as in conservation science. This program was formalized in 1972 with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and offers three 10-month fellowships each year. Supervised by the Straus Center’s conservators and conservation scientists, fellows refine their practical and analytical skills as they examine and treat works of art from important collections from within the Art Museums and around the country, and publish their original research.

The Straus Center is a pioneer in the use of sophisticated examination and instrumental techniques to analyze the structural and chemical nature of works of art and historical objects. As a research institution, the Straus Center specializes in performing and publishing integrated technical and art historical studies of works of art in a variety of forums. Its facilities support a comprehensive range of analytical services, including pigment, stone, ceramic, and metal identification, as well as spectroscopic analyses of organic materials including pigments, paint-binding media, and surface treatments and coatings. Much of the analytical staff’s time is devoted to supporting student, faculty, and curatorial research.

The Center for Conservation and Technical Studies was established in 1928 by Edward W. Forbes, director of Harvard University’s Fogg Museum. It is the oldest fine arts conservation treatment, research, and training facility in the United States. In 1994, the center was renamed the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies in honor of Philip A. and Lynn Straus, longtime benefactors of the Harvard Art Museums. The Straus Center specializes in the conservation of works on paper, paintings, sculpture, decorative objects, and historical and archaeological artifacts.

The Straus Center for Conservation today continues to play a leading role not only in preserving specific works of art but also in developing new methods and techniques for the field of conservation and in training the next generation of conservators.

Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies

Henry Lie, Director and Senior Conservator of Objects and Sculpture
Francesca Bewer, Research Curator
Angela Chang, Assistant Director and Conservator of Objects and Sculpture
Susan Costello, Projects Conservator in the Objects Lab
Anne Driesse, Conservator of Works of Art on Paper
Katherine Eremin, Patricia Cornwell Conservation Scientist
Gabriel Dunn, Paintings Conservation Fellow
Ciaran Foley, Office Assistant
Diana Galante, Samuel H. Kress Objects Lab Fellow
Teri Hensick, Conservator of Paintings
Charlotte Karney, Senior Conservation Technician
Kathleen Kennelly, Conservation Administrator
Narayan Khandekar, Senior Conservation Scientist
Daniel Kirby, Associate in Conservation Science
Penley Knipe, Philip and Lynn Straus Conservator of Works of Art on Paper
Erin Mysak, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Conservation Science
Ariel O’Connor, Assistant Objects Conservator
Louise Orsini, Assistant Paintings Conservator for Adolphus Busch Hall Murals Project
Barbara Owens, Conservation Technician
Tony Sigel, Conservator of Objects and Sculpture
Kate Smith, Projects Conservator in the Paintings Lab
Jens Stenger, Associate Conservation Scientist
Marion Verborg, Craigen W. Bowen Paper Conservation Fellow

News

Francesca Bewer, Research Curator in the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums, has been awarded the 2012 College Art Association/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation. The award is presented annually to recognize an outstanding contribution by a person who has an enhanced understanding of art through the application of knowledge and experience in conservation, art history, and art. The jury that selected Dr. Bewer for this honor wrote: “Dr. Bewer represents for us an exemplary technical art historian; an expert in the materials and techniques of European Renaissance and Baroque bronze sculpture…[she] has published (in three languages) a steady stream of superb publications, in conservation and art historical journals, exhibition catalogues, and monographs. She is as well a highly valued teacher and lecturer, and has presented a number of important talks here and abroad.” In addition to her work cited above, the committee acknowledged her recent book on the history of conservation, A Laboratory for Art: Harvard’s Fogg Museum and the Emergence of Conservation in America, 1900-1950, published by the Harvard Art Museums in 2010. Previous winners of this award at the Art Museums include Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, founding director of the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art (2004); Harry Cooper, former curator of modern art at the Fogg Museum, and Ron Spronk, former research curator at the Straus Center (2002); Henry Lie, Director and Senior Conservator of Objects and Sculpture at the Straus Center (1997); and Marjorie Cohn, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, emerita, at the Fogg Museum (1996).

Selected Resources from the Straus Center

Books
—John Singer Sargent’s Triumph of Religion at the Boston Public Library: Creation and Restoration
—A Laboratory for Art: Harvard’s Fogg Museum and the Emergence of Conservation in America, 1900–1950

Articles by Straus Center Conservators
—Comparison of Three-Dimensional Optical Coherence Tomography and High Resolution Photography for Art Conservation Studies
—Characterization of Calcium Sulfate Grounds and Fillings of Applied Tin-Relief Brocades by Raman Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform infrared Spectroscopy, and Scanning Electron Microscopy
—Paper Profiles: American Portrait Silhouettes
—Reproducing Morris Louis Paintings to Evaluate Conservation Strategies
—Understanding Glass Deterioration in Museum Collections: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach

Full list of Publications of the Straus Center

Articles About the Straus Center's Work
—The Improvised Remedies of an Art Healer, The New York Times, October 25, 2010
—John Singer Sargent’s “Triumph of Religion” at the Boston Public Library: Creation and Restoration, Burlington Magazine, December 2010
—The Joy of Text, Time Out New York, Issue 640: Jan 3-9, 2008
—Plucky Charms, The Washington Post, February 18, 2008
—With a Coat of New Paint, Revealing the True Judd, The New York Times, June 29, 2010

Audio
Narayan Khandekar on Science Minutes from WCAI, Cape and Islands NPR Station:
>Art Layers
>KY Jelly
>Forgery

Video
Narayan Khandekar presentation at the Sunday at the Met Lecture Series:
>Technical Analysis of Three Paintings Attributed to Jackson Pollock Part I
>Technical Analysis of Three Paintings Attributed to Jackson Pollock Part 2
>Technical Analysis of Three Paintings Attributed to Jackson Pollock Part 3

Televised report on the practical work of Ainhoa Rodríguez-López’s PhD thesis: A Study of the Materials and Techniques Used to Make a Renaissance Panel Painting from the Collection of the Hispanic Society of America, thesis advisor Narayan Khandekar
>Spanish language presentation
>Basque language presentation

Web
—The Sargent Murals at the Boston Public Library: History, Interpretation, Restoration
—A Technical Study of Portable Paintings from Cave 17 in US Collections