Henry Lie of Harvard Art Museums announces retirement

Henry Lie examining the interior of a bronze leg.
Henry Lie examining the interior of a bronze leg.

Henry Lie, Conservator of Objects and Sculpture at the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums has announced his retirement in July of this year. After obtaining his graduate training at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, interning at the Walters Art Museum, and working on archeological excavations in England, Cyprus and Israel, Henry came to the Art Museums as a fellow in the Objects and Sculpture Lab in 1980. This represented a return to Harvard, where he came to love the collections while completing his A.B. in Fine Arts in 1976. He was named Director of Conservation in 1990 and served in that capacity through 2014.
In the 1980’s, when the department was heavily invested in work for outside institutions, Henry contributed to the national debate on the cleaning and preservation of outdoor bronzes, participating in the Save Outdoor Sculpture initiative in Washington, D.C., and leading the objects lab in treating many large scale bronze monuments, in the Boston metropolitan area, New England and at Harvard. Also during this period, Henry and his staff worked on a number of monumental mounting and restoration treatments including the Assyrian relief sculptures at Dartmouth, Bowdoin and Middlebury colleges and the Antioch mosaic at Smith College. The disassembly and treatment of Harvard’s marble of the emperor Trajan in the Fogg’s shipping room was one of his first treatment projects as a staff member and in part led to the lab’s involvement in other large-scale work.
Henry was an early promoter of computer imaging in the service of technical documentation and with technical art historian Ron Spronk developed improved methods of infrared image capture and mosaicing and layering of IRR, X-ray and color images using off-the-shelf software, which they presented internationally and used extensively in the Museums’ Mondrian: Transatlantic Paintings catalog. He was invited by the Getty Conservation Institute to contribute to meetings of the Conservation Imaging Consortium seeking to encourage the development of new digital tools for technical studies. He was also an author for Robin Thomes’s Object ID: Guidelines for Making Records That Describe Art, Antiques and Antiquities from Getty Publications, in which he advanced simple systems for distinguishing artifacts using aspects of their physical attributes.
Henry and Narayan Khandekar worked with the Andrew W. Mellon foundation in 2001 to define the Museum’s Post-Graduate Fellowship in Conservation Science. Georgina Rayner is the current and fifth three-year fellow and the program has now been endowed as the Beale Family Post-Graduate Fellowship in Conservation Science.
During his tenure, Henry led conservation department-taught undergraduate and graduate courses in the department of the History of Art and Architecture entitled “HAA 101, The Materials of Art” and “HAA 206 Science and the Practice of Art History.” Hundreds of students took these popular seminar courses while Henry was director. Applying the resources and collections at hand, he and his staff encouraged students to handle and look closely at objects, and try the tools, materials, and techniques used to make and examine art. He demonstrated and taught students to look and think critically and creatively. He says that one of his greatest joys at the Museums was assembling groups of bronze casts for the class and using them one-on-one with individual students to help explain the intricacies of the fabrication process. Concurrent with teaching students at Harvard, Henry led his staff in the department’s rich tradition of training conservation fellows in the Straus Center’s advanced-level training program.
Henry considers himself fortunate to have had the chance to contribute to several exhibition catalogs. Working with Carol Mattusch of George Mason University, he provided the technical chapter and entries for bronzes in The Fire of Hephaistos: Large Classical Bronzes in North American Collections catalog in 1996. Four years later he again collaborated with Carol on the study of sculptures from the National Archeological Museum, Naples, to produce Carol’s book, The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, Life and afterlife of a Sculpture Collection. In 1999 Henry authored technical chapters and with Ivan Gaskell co-edited Sketches in Clay for Projects by Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Theoretical, Technical, and Case Studies. Tony Sigel’s description of Bernini’s working methods in this catalog served as a springboard for his important subsequent work on these Bernini models and those in other collections. After a one week whirlwind tour of Italy and Switzerland in 2002 with Harry Cooper and independent scholar, Sharon Hecker, Henry provided a technical chapter for Harry’s book, Medardo Rosso, Second Impressions, describing the artist’s unusual working methods. Most recently he has had the opportunity to provide hundreds of technical entries for Susanne Ebbinghaus’s catalog of ancient bronzes. He points out, with some degree of pain, that this included drilling small samples for analysis from over eight hundred of these objects. With Francesca Bewer, Henry wrote a chapter for the catalog of these bronzes, Ex Aere Factum: Technical Notes on Ancient Bronzes.
Henry has received several awards for his work over the years:

  • College Art Association/National Institute for Conservation Joint Award for Excellence in Conservation, 1997
  • Samuel H. Kress Paired Fellowship for Research in Conservation and Art History/Archaeology, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, 1998
  • College Art Association 2006 Charles Rufus Morey Award for The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, Life and afterlife of a Sculpture Collection, Carol C. Mattusch with Henry Lie, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2005

–Harvard Art Museums

IIC 2015 Student & Emerging Conservator Conference – Registration open!

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Warsaw, Thursday 15th & Friday 16th October 2015
IIC 2015 Student & Emerging Conservator Conference – Registration open!
IIC’s third Student & Emerging Conservator Conference will be held on the 15th & 16th October 2015. Following on from the successful 2013 (Copenhagen) and 2011 (London) Student & Emerging Conservator Conferences this conference will allow those at the start of their professional journeys the chance to discuss and explore the three areas of:
– Differences in the conservation education systems of different countries and how these can help – or not.
– The first steps after a graduation: supplementing academic qualifications with practical training, workplace / job experience and volunteering. Mentors and Trade Union / Professional Body support.
– The Conservator with more than five years’ experience: specifically, how can networking make a difference for younger professionals (under 35) and what national / local legal barriers have been encountered by them?
As with all of IIC’s Student & Emerging Conservator Conferences, this event will aim to offer an international perspective and to facilitate communication between student/emerging conservators on the one hand, and professionals active in the field of conservation, in national institutions and museums as well as in the private sector. The conference aims to create a platform where the discussion of current needs in conservation and the relationship between expectations and reality can be discussed.
Plus studio visits, a social programme.
The themes discussed will be supported by organised visits to some of central Warsaw’s major conservation studios.
There will also be a chance to socialise at the evening receptions on the Thursday and Friday, and lunch is included for the Friday.
The presentations will be held in the form of collaborative Web Broadcasts, which will allow an international community of speakers and participants to take join the conference, either in person or online. There will also be dialogue between the speakers and the audience, including those attending via the web. Conservation professionals active in the private sector as well as in museums/institutions will discuss their experience and address the concerns raised, will give their views on the future of the profession, and the evolution of conservators’ responsibilities. Experienced conservators will address the issues of presentation skills, portfolio creation and use and language skills, as well as getting started in a career and the international aspects of conservation work.
The conference will provide an excellent platform for the exchange of ideas among those studying conservation, archaeology, art history, heritage studies and related disciplines, people who are soon to share the professional responsibility for a wide array of heritage-related issues.
The conference has the very generous support of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and its Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art.
For registration and more details please go to https://www.iiconservation.org/student-conferences/2015warsaw

43rd Annual Meeting – Electronic Media Session, May 16, "Tackling obsolescence through virtualization: facing challenges and finding potentials” by Patricia Falcao, Annet Dekker, and Pip Laurenson

The presenters began by explaining that they had changed the title to reflect the emphasis of presentation. The new title became "An exploration of significance and dependency in the conservation of software-based artwork."

Based upon their research, the presenters decided to focus on dependencies rather than obsolesence per se. The project was related to PERICLES, a pan-European risk assessment project for preserving digital content. PERICLES was a four-year collaboration that included systems engineers and other specialists, modeling systems to predict change.

The presenters used two case studies from the Tate to examine key concepts of dependencies and significant properties. Significant properties were described as values defined by the artist. Dependency is the connection between different elements in a system, defined by the function of those elements, such as the speed of a processor. The research focused on works of art where software is the essential part of the art. The presenters explained that there were four categories of software-based artwork: contained, networked, user-dependent, and generative. The featured case studies were examples of contained and networked artworks. These categories were defined not only in terms of behavior, but also in terms of dependencies.

Michael Craig-Martin's Becoming was a contained artwork. The changing composition of images was comprised of animation of the artist’s drawings on LCD screen, using proprietary software. Playback speed is an example of an essential property that could be changed, if there were a future change in hardware, for example.

Jose Carlos Martinat Mendoza's Brutalism: Stereo Reality Environment 3 was the second case study discussed by the presenters. This work of art is organized around a visual pun, evoking the Brutalist architecture of the Peruvian “Pentagonito,” a government Ministry of Defense office associated with the human rights abuses of a brutal regime. Both the overall physical form of the installation, when viewed merely as sculpture, and the photographic image of the original structure reinforce the architectural message. A printer integrated into the exhibit conveys textual messages gleaned from internet searches of brutality. While the networked connection permitted a degree of randomness and spontaneity in the information flowing from the printer, there was a backup MySQL database to provide content, in the event of an interruption in the internet connection.

The presenters emphasized that the dependencies for software-based art were built around aesthetic considerations of function. A diagram was used to illustrate the connection between artwork-level dependencies. With "artwork" in the center, three spokes radiated outward toward knowledge, interface, and computation. An example of knowledge might be the use of a password to have administrative rights to access or modify the work. A joystick or a game controller would be examples of interfaces. In Brutalism, the printer is an interface. Computation refers to the capacity and processor speed of the computer itself.

Virtualization has been offered as an approach to preserving these essential relationships. It separates hardware from software, creating a single file out of many. It can act as a diagnostic tool and a preservation strategy that mitigates against hardware failure. The drawbacks were that it could mean copying unnecessary or undesirable files or that the virtual machine (and the x86 virtualization architecture) could become obsolete. Another concern is that virtualization may not capture all of the significant properties that give the artwork its unique character. A major advantage of virtualization is that it permits the testing of dependencies such as processor speed. It also facilitates version control and comparison of different versions.The authors did not really explain the difference between emulation and virtualization, perhaps assuming that the audience already knew the difference. Emulation uses software to replicate the original hardware environment to run different operating systems, whereas virtualization uses the existing underlying hardware to run different operating systems. The hardware emulation step decreases performance.

The presenters then explained the process that is used at the Tate. They create a copy of the hardware and software. A copy is kept on the Tate servers. Collections are maintained in a High Value Digital Asset Repository. The presenters also described the relationship of the artist's installation requirements to the dependencies and significant properties. For example, Becoming requires a monitor with a clean black frame of specific dimensions and aspect ratio. The software controls the timing and speed of image rotation and the randomness or image changes, as well as traditional artistic elements of color and scale. With Brutalism, the language (Spanish to English) is another essential factor, along with "liveness" of search.

During the question and answer period, the presenters explained that they were using VMware, because it was practical and readily available. An audience member asked an interesting question about the limitations of virtualization for the GPU (graphics processing unit). The current methodology at the Tate works for the CPU(central processing unit) only, not the graphics unit. The presenters indicated that they anticipated future support for the GPU.

This presentation emphasized the importance of curatorship of significant propeeties and documentation of dependencies in conserving software-based art. It was important to understand the artist's intent and to capture the essence of the artwork as it was meant to be presented, while recognizing that the artist’s hardware, operating system, applications, and hardware drivers could all become obsolete. It was clear from the presentation that a few unanswered questions remain, but virtualization appears to be a viable preservation strategy.

Can anyone determine whether the destruction pictured is real?

In a recent article about the destruction of monuments and cultural heritage sites by representatives of the Islamic State (“Islamic State Destroys More Artifacts in Iraq and Syria”, The New York Times, July 4, 2015), reporters Rick Gladstone and Maher Samaan note that there is some speculation that the photographs posted by Islamist media outlets of destroyed statues from Palmyra, Syria seized from a smuggler may be of fake statue remains and that the sculptures were smuggled by the Islamic State fighters themselves. Is the resolution of these photos good enough for conservators who are experts in stone to determine from the edges and breaks whether the remains in the photos are old and of the type of stone they should be if the real thing?

Our responsibilities transcend our aesthetic proclivities

According to a story by David W. Dunlap in the July 2, 2015 issue of The New York Times (‘Restoring a Lackluster Sculpture, for Legacy’s Sake”), $40,000 of public funding is being spent to restore “Freedom of the Human Spirit”, a bronze sculpture by Marshall M. Fredericks that has been standing in Flushing Meadows Corona Park since the 1964 World’s Fair. A prime example of mid-20th century monumental sculpture, the work is now out of fashion and favor. Yet, Jonathan Kuhn, Director of Art and Antiquities for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is quoted as saying about its restoration, “Our responsibilities as custodians transcend our aesthetic proclivities.” These words could be the conservator’s motto.

43rd Annual Meeting – Sustainability session – May 15, 2015 – "Achieving Competing Goals: Energy Efficient Cold Storage" by Shengyin Xu et al

This presentation provides a case study from the Minnesota Historical Society for a cold storage unit that is inefficient and could perhaps provide better conditions within its given parameters. One problem with specialty storage is the high cost of running specialized environmental systems. So, what can one do for optimal conditions for cold storage yet still save on energy cost?
In 2012, an NEH Sustainability Planning Grant was secure to investigate the possibilities available for improving their cold storage. It is hoped that the collaborative design process could achieve better preservation condition in the long term and use energy savings more efficiently and potentially see actual savings.
Currently, their cold storage unit ran at 62F and 40%RH and was a very small space: 2% of their overall storage space. Its current conditions provided a Preservation Index (PI) of approximately 100. It utilized 7% of the Historical Society’s annual energy use, but wasn’t providing the conditions it needed for good cold storage of audiovisual collections.
The Historical Society went through a variety of condition and compared PI numbers to see what various conditions could provide in terms of collection storage longevity. Beyond that, they also investigated capital costs associated with retrofitting the unit to provide those conditions. Lastly, they examined the costs associated with running the unit for the long term. They balanced all three of these factors in order to come to a solution that would be beneficial on all three levels: collections environment, capital costs, and sustainability.
I will admit that I had a hard time following the flow of this presentation, especially toward the end when gears were shifted from environmental conditions of cold storage to air quality examination. One of the frustrating points of the presentation were these air quality tables that were too small to be legible on the screen.Visual charts would have been helpful to demonstrate the different air quality levels that were present and what they were trying to achieve. I also didn’t fully understand what this part of the presentation had to do with the rest of the talk.
 

Job Posting: Conservator (Exhibits & Loans) – National Museum of American History (Washington, DC)

Conservator (Exhibits & Loans)-National Museum of American History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C.
POSITION INFORMATION: Full-Time, Permanent – Federal
SALARY RANGE: $63,722.00 to $82,840.00 / Per Year
OPEN PERIOD: Thursday, July 2, 2015 to Thursday, July 16, 2015
SERIES & GRADE: GS-1001-11
PROMOTION POTENTIAL: 12
This position is located in Preservation Services, Office of Curatorial Affairs, within the National Museum of American History (NMAH). The employee is responsible for the coordination and organization of conservation activities related to NMAH exhibits and loans, and conservation treatment of exhibit and loan objects.
Duties:
Serves as the conservation coordinator among the conservation labs and on loan and exhibit teams. Advises on the development of conservation plans, schedules to ensure they are synchronized with each other.
Performs reviews and provides feedback on conservation-related aspects of exhibit and loan plans.
Carries out conservation work on objects with a wide range of structures, materials, significance, age, and condition. Develops conservation treatment proposals, recommends treatments, and obtains curatorial approval on recommended treatments.
For more information and application instructions, https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/408793700

New JAIC issue online now

JAIC coverThe latest issue of JAIC (Journal of the American Institute for Conservation) is now online, and print copies are mailing shortly. This issue, Vol. 53, No. 2, features the following articles:

  • EDITORIAL, by Julio M. Del Hoyo-Meléndez, Editor-In-Chief
  • SHORT COMMUNICATION: GOBERGE, SHIMBARI, GO-BARS: THE USE OF FLEXIBLE STICKS FOR CLAMPING, by Tristram Bainbridge, Shayne Rivers, Yoshihiko Yamashita, Andrew Thackray, Nicola Newman
  • CHOOSING AN ADHESIVE FOR EXTERIOR WOODWORK THROUGH MECHANICAL TESTING, by Rian M. H. Deurenberg-Wilkinson
  • SOURCE CODE ANALYSIS AS TECHNICAL ART HISTORY, by Deena Engel and Glenn Wharton
  • RAISING MERET-IT-ES: EXAMINING AND CONSERVING AN EGYPTIAN ANTHROPOID COFFIN FROM 380–250 BCE, by Kathleen M. Garland, Johanna Bernstein, Joe Rogers
  • BOOK REVIEWS, by Vanessa Muros and Cybele Tom

AIC members and journal subscribers have online access to these articles now, before the print issue arrives. We hope you enjoy these articles, which bring some very interesting techniques and research to light.

Read more about the journal at http://www.maneyonline.com/loi/jac, or review the submission guidelines and JAIC style guide at http://www.conservation-us.org/jaic.