Art Conservation: Science, Art, and Career​

Who is asking? 

10th- and 11th-grade chemistry students at Birmingham Community Charter High School in Lake Balboa, California. Students wrote these questions after exploring the conservation of The Blue Boy.

Who is answering?

Christina O’Connell is The Huntington’s senior paintings conservator. ​She received her master’s degree in art conservation with a concentration in paintings from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. Since 2013, she has worked at The Huntington, where she developed the first paintings conservation program. O’Connell has been in the field of conservation for almost 20 years, treating and studying paintings from the 15th to the 20th century.​

Tools, Technology, and Techniques​

What special materials are needed to conserve a painting? Which tool is your favorite, and why? ​

A conservator needs to consider the original materials and their condition when approaching treatment. There is no formula to conservation work, and the materials vary from painting to painting. A conservator must have knowledge of adhesives, solvents, resins, and polymers and how to appropriately use them when making treatment decisions. When it comes to adding new colors where the original is damaged or missing, a conservator chooses paints that can be easily removed later. Making steps of the treatment reversible or easily re-treatable helps preserve the painting.​

If I had to pick one favorite tool, I’d choose the microscope. Understanding a painting begins with looking carefully at its many layers. Magnification is often necessary to view details you might not see otherwise, and a truly up-close look is quite amazing.​

How long does it take to carefully study an art piece and gather the necessary information to conserve it? How long does the conservation process take?​

This is another situation that varies from painting to painting. The study of a painting depends on the quality and quantity of historic records, the condition of the painting, and how the artist made the work of art. Written and photographic records can provide a good initial understanding. If there are no records, a conservator relies on forensic investigation to understand the materials, decipher a painting’s history, and determine the best approach for treatment. ​

The conservation process includes more than treatment. Conservators start with examination to understand the work of art. Conservators also create written and photographic records of the examination and the treatment for a painting so that future conservators and curators can understand the construction and condition of a painting and know what occurred during treatment. The amount of time it takes for conservation varies with each project.​

How does the painting dictate the conservation process? What was the most important thing to consider when conducting the art conservation of The Blue Boy?​

The conservation process is planned to address the specific condition of each painting. The work is guided by the original materials as well as past conservation materials that are present. ​

For the conservation of The Blue Boy, the same careful approach to understanding the painting and its history was undertaken. Paintings are composite objects made up of many layers, and a good understanding of the materials is critical.

​How difficult was it to conserve this painting? Did you make any mistakes that you subsequently had to fix? If a conservator makes a mistake, can it be fixed? How?​

How high can you go on the electromagnetic energy/frequency spectrum without the work becoming too dangerous, either for the painting or for you? Are there frequencies that would not be helpful due to extremely high energy or energy that is too weak? ​
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How do the different light frequencies bring out specific objects? For example, why can we only see the dog under infrared light?​
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Typically, a conservator uses multiple analytical techniques to understand the structure and materials for a painting, because each technique can provide different data. X-rays will penetrate all the layers of a painting and it’s possible to see changes, such as the dog, or damages, such as the tear in the original canvas. Gainsborough used lead white to paint the dog, making it easily visible in the X-ray.​

The dog is also visible with infrared. The infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum will interact with materials by either absorbing or reflecting the infrared light. Conservators often use infrared light to study preparatory layers because the materials that artists commonly use to sketch out a design often absorb infrared. For The Blue Boy, infrared shows a bold preparatory stroke on the left side of the boy’s body. This stroke was applied by Gainsborough as he was mapping out the initial composition for the painting, and it isn’t visible from the surface. Infrared also makes it possible to see exactly how Gainsborough applied details of foliage and rocks to cover up the dog when he decided to paint over it.​

Art Conservation Careers​

How long does it take to finish studying studio art, art history, and chemistry to become a certified art conservator?​

I can speak about the path of pursuing one of the U.S.-based training programs. One needs preliminary coursework in studio art to develop hand skills, art history to understand historical context, and the sciences, particularly chemistry, to understand art and conservation materials. This experience is often obtained with a four-year undergraduate degree with a major in one of the described areas. Each graduate program has slightly different prerequisites, and details can be found on their websites.​

The art conservation graduate programs are three to four years long with one of those years spent in an applied internship. It’s common for early-career conservators to spend a few years after graduation in internships or fellowships.​

​Do some universities offer art conservation as a specific major? ​

There are not many opportunities to major in art conservation as an undergraduate. Completing the prerequisite course work for graduate school admission can be undertaken at many universities. One doesn’t have to focus on getting an undergraduate degree in conservation to pursue the field.​

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC) offers some resources for entering the field of conservation: ​