Conservation Awards winners

The Conservation Awards 2007 winners announced

The battle to look after hundreds of years of British history was
recognised last night at a ceremony at the British Museum. People
and projects who have done most to ensure the preservation of
valuable heritage items won deserved acclaim at the Conservation
Awards 2007, which are supported by Sir Paul McCartney.

The top two awards, which come with a glass trophy and UKP15,000,
went to contrasting projects--the miraculous preservation of a 400
year old silk jacket, and a unique university project in the
north-east that will ensure the proper preservation of precious
documents across the region.

Judging Chair Dame Liz Forgan, said:

   "It is only possible to enjoy and learn from our past because of
    the ingenuity, dedication and hard work that go into ensuring
    heritage items are kept and looked after  with meticulous care
    and in the right environment. The winners of these Awards are an
    inspiration to others."

The miraculous preservation of a 400 year old silk doublet won the
Award for Conservation. The fragile man's jacket dating from the
1620s had been painstakingly conserved in a 300-hour operation based
on detailed analysis of the material and the way it had been made.
Broadcaster Dan Cruickshank presented the award to Tuula Pardoe of
the Scottish Conservation Studio and Sue Payne, curator at Perth
Museum, where the doublet is on show for the first time ever. The
project was up against stiff competition from the multi-Award
winning ss Great Britain and a National Trust project to restore an
Elizabethan table carpet.

And a trailblazing scheme to spread advice on how to look after book
and paper collections across the north-east ensured that Durham
University Library picked up the Collections Care Award. The
project, with funding from the Museums Libraries and Archives
Council (MLA) North East, helped 50 organisations across the region
equip themselves with the know-how to preserve vital documents,
books and manuscripts in buildings ranging from a castle tower to an
industrial unit.

MLA Chair Mark Wood presented the award to Liz Branigan, resident
conservator at Durham University Library and Sheila Hingley, Head of
heritage collections.

Other winners were:

    Rachel Morrison and The Courtauld Institute of Art won Student
    Conservator of the Year for research into cleaning unvarnished
    paintings.

    Loyd Grossman presented The National Archives, Kew, with the
    Digital Preservation Award for the 'Active preservation at the
    National Archives: PRONOM and DROID' project.

    Professor Norman Tennent and Dr James Nobbs won the Anna Plowden
    Award for inventing a computerised technique to improve
    colour-matching in ceramic conservation, presented by Baroness
    Sharp of Guildford.

The Conservation Awards are the UK's leading awards for the
preservation of cultural heritage. They are sponsored by Sir Paul
McCartney and supported by key organisations in conservation and
collections care: the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA),
English Heritage, the Institute of Conservation (Icon) and the
National Preservation Office. The Digital Preservation Coalition and
the Anna Plowden Trust sponsor the awards in their names.

For more information see <URL:http://www.conservationawards.org.uk>.

Pictures of the winning projects are available from
<URL:http://www.picselect.com> under English Heritage/Conservation
Awards.

Separate press releases on other Awards are available from the
website.

For details of the Digital Preservation Award, please see
<URL:http://www.dpconline.org>.

2007 Awards Judges: Chair: Dame Liz Forgan, Chair, Heritage Lottery
Fund; George Ferguson, Chairman, Acanthus Ferguson Mann Architects;
Maev Kennedy, Arts Correspondent, The Guardian; Gillian Lewis,
formerly Head of Conservation, National Maritime Museum; Georgina
Nayler, Director, The Pilgrim Trust; Alice Rawsthorn, Design Critic,
International Herald Tribune; Rosalind Savill,  Director, The
Wallace Collection; Anna Southall, Vice-Chair, Big Lottery Fund. The
Digital Preservation Award has its own expert panel of judges, while
the Anna Plowden Trust Award is judged by the Trustees.

Susan Hughes
Administrator, Conservation Awards 2007
3rd Floor, Downstream Building
1 London Bridge
London SE1 9BG
+44 20 7326 0995


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:24
               Distributed: Saturday, September 29, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-21-24-001
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