Volume 3, Number 3, Sept. 1981, pp.3-4

Personals

Los Angeles

David Kolch has joined the painting conservation section at LACMA. David came to LACMA from the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London, CT.

Pieter Meyers has joined the staff of the Conservation Center at LACMA as the Conservation Chemist. Pieter was previously at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as Senior Research Chemist.

Don Menveg is an Assistant Art Conservator, Structural, at LACMA. Don was formerly a senior preparator at LACMA.

Catherine McLean has completed her third year internship in textile conservation at LACMA. After graduating from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Art Conservation Program in July, Catherine joined the textile conservation section as a Mellon Fellow.

Pat Reeves, Victoria Blyth Hill and Benita Johnson participated in the first Conservancy Workshop at the Folk and Craft Art Council in Los Angeles. Pat Reeves spoke on textile preservation, Victoria Blyth Hill spoke on the care and preservation of works of art on paper and Benita Johnson spoke on ethnographic conservation.

Victoria Blyth Hill, Paper Conservator at LACMA, assisted in organizing a show, "Wallpaper/Roompaper," a selected exhibition of artworks at LAICA Robertson Sept. 22 - Oct. 24 and at LAICA downtown from Sept. 11 - Oct. 25.

Pieter Meyers participated in a seminar on "The Great Bronze Age of China" at LACMA on May 23 and 24. His talk was "Critical Evaluation of the Various Methods of Technical Study of Ancient Chinese Bronzes."

LACMA has converted its phone system to CENTREX. New numbers for the Conservation Center are as follows:

General Information 857-6163
Paper Lab 857-6167
Paintings Lab 857-6168
Textile Lab 856-6169
Objects Lab 857-6171, 857-6166
Analytical 857-6166, 857-6160

Pat Reeves, Textile Conservator at LACMA, and Sharon Shore, a private Textile Conservator, have been awarded a contract for the conservation of ten historic flags belonging to the State Capitol in Sacramento. The ten flags, part of a collection of fifty-five which cover the Civil, Spanish American and first World Wars, are all from the latter period. All are made of silk and most of them are badly deteriorated. After fumigation, cleaning and mounting, the flags will be part of a rotating display in the Rotunda of the State Capital. The conservation of the flags is a small part of the general restoration of the Capitol building which began in 1975 and is scheduled for completion in January 1982. The conservation of the flags should take about three months. The work will be done at Caring for Textiles, Sharon Shore's privately owned textile conservation studio in Los Angeles.

Janet N. Davenzer, Textile Conservator, H.U.C. Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, has been accepted as an apprentice in the workshop studio of the Abegg-Stiftung, Bern, Switzerland for June, July and August 1982 She has been awarded a partial stipend from the Abegg-Stiftung Foundation.

During her senior year, Judeth Richards, now a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles in Home Economics, has been assisting Janet N. Davenzer at the H.U.C. Skirball Museum on a part-time basis. Judeth was hired as a full time assistant for July, August and September 1981 and has been working with Janet on the four year textile project, now in its third year, conserving the Judaic ritual textiles in the collection.

Leslie Kruth, Paper Conservator, has returned from a six month advanced internship at the Fogg Art Museum. While working under the supervision of Marjorie Cohn, Leslie dealt with a varied collection of prints and drawings including old masters, Japanese prints, and Cezanne watercolors. The emphasis of her internship was on conservation as well as on connoisseurship. Leslie took two classes at Harvard University, "German Art Between the Wars" and "Paris in the 1880's." While interning at the Fogg, Leslie was also able to visit Museums and Conservation Centers in the Northeast. In Los Angeles, she will be doing business under the name of, "Center for the Conservation of Works of Art on Paper, Inc." Linda Shaffer will continue to do business under her own name.

The J. Paul Getty Museum has hired a new Head Conservator of Paintings, Andrea Rothe. Mr. Rothe comes to the museum from Florence where he has worked since 1959 in the laboratory of Lionetto Tintori. He has held the position of Chief of the Laboratory in the Pitti Palace, which handles work on contract to the Italian State, restoring paintings belonging to various Tuscan museums and churches. Mr. Rothe also has worked as an assistant to Oskar Kokoscha in Salzburg.

Barbara Roberts has joined the staff at the J. Paul Getty Museum in July as Head Conservator of Decorative Arts. Ms. Roberts was formerly employed by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. She received her training at the London College of Furniture and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Ms. Roberts will take care of all the objects in the Decorative Arts Collection and will help to establish a larger department to accommodate the increasing workload.

Congratulations to Carol Young on her marriage to Carl Verheyen. After their August 23, 1981 wedding, the newlyweds honeymooned in Hawaii.

Santa Barbara

The conservation and restoration firm of Bradywicks, 709 East Gutierrez, is proud to announce the addition of John Middleton- Tidwell, specialist in painting restoration, to our staff.

Mr. Middleton-Tidwell studied with conservator Alan Boyle in Brighton, England prior to going into private practice in Monterey, California.

San Diego

The Balboa Art Conservation Center has moved to the "New Electric Building" in Balboa Park, 1649 El Prado, San Diego (our mailing address is still the same). The new quarters, which include painting and paper laboratories, a library, offices and an exhibition area, contain approximately 4500 square feet of space, three times the space of the old facility.

Although BACC staff members were too busy concentrating on the completion of the new laboratory to contribute to the last WAAC newsletter (which dealt with designing and building new laboratories), now that our project is completed, we would be happy to consult with anyone about to embark on a similar venture.

Betsy Court has joined the staff of BACC as a Paintings Conservator. She is a graduate of the Winterthur Museum/University of Delaware Conservator Training Program and spent last year studying at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge, England.

Denver

Jeanne Brako, a conservation intern from New York University currently studying at the Rocky Mountain Regional Conservation Center under the direction of Charles Patterson, will be doing a three month study period at the Textile Conservation Center, Hampton Court under the direction of Karen Finch.

Charles Patterson, Chief Conservator at the RMRCC, spoke at the National Conference on Collecting 20th Century Materials September 11-13 in Williamsburg, Virginia. He discussed the use of two-dimensional and three-dimensional materials. Mr. Patterson also spoke at the AASLH seminar on "Interpretation and Preventive Maintenance" and "Buying Conservation Services" in Iowa City, Iowa, August 3rd, 1981. Mr. Patterson is presently working on a large Sioux Tepee for the Denver Art Museum which will be exhibited at the Edinburgh Festival next year.

Carl Grimm, former paintings conservator of the RMRCC, has left the Center to work privately.

Connie Wanke, Conservator at the RMRCC, assisted in a one-day seminar on Disaster Planning for Libraries in the Colorado area in June 1981. The seminar was sponsored by a grant from the Colorado Conservation Study.

Arne Hansen, Director of the RMRCC, will be attending the WAAM Meeting in San Antonio, Texas and the meeting of the Mountain Plains Museum Association in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in October 1981. Mr. Hansen is Treasurer of WAAM and Vice President of the Association.

The RMRCC has gained two new consortium members over the summer months. The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado and the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

Claire Munzenrider's conservation work with mixed-media folk art continues in preparing the extensive Gerard Collection for the opening of the new wing at the International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico in October, 1982.