Founded in 1956 with a single paintings conservator, the department has grown to a staff of over 30 specializing in nine disciplines.




Microscopist Inge Fiedler and paintings conservator Tim Lennon examine Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 in the 1980s.

Paper conservator David Chandler and preparator Clyde Payton unframe Odilon Redon’s The Beacon about 1973.


Mellon Fellow Tania Passafiume treating Alfred Stieglitz’s The Flatiron and Severson examining Steiglitz’s Georgia O’Keeffe: Hands and Thimble about 2002.



Conservation technicians Cecile Webster and RaeAnn Collins with conservator Barbara Korbel, 1999/2000.

Hall treating the Chinese Seated Guanyin, about 1992.



Paper conservator David Chandler, intern Melissa Bushey, and conservator Margo McFarland attend to the prints and drawings collection in the newly renovated paper conservation lab.

Microscopist Inge Fiedler and Francesca Casadio take spectrophotometer readings on Robert Delaunay’s Champs de Mars: The Red Tower in 2003.

Zuccari treating El Greco’s Assumption of the Virgin in 2017.
