Volume 15, Number 3, Sept 1993, pp.5-6

Sheldon Keck

Sheldon Keck died June 12th at the age of 83, following a stroke. Mr. Keck set high standards for American art conservation through six decades of valuable contributions to the field: as a painting conservator, in the scientific examination of works of art, and as an educator. A remembrance of Sheldon Keck written by his long-time colleague, Susanne Sack, will appear in AIC News.

Publications by Sheldon Keck

(listed in chronological order)

The Restoration of an Early American Landscape
Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 1 (January 1935): 69-73.

Craftsmanship in XVth Century Painting
Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, vol. 23 (1936): 123-138.

A Method of Cleaning Prints
Technical Studies in the Field of Fine Arts, vol. 5, no. 2 (October 1936): 117-126.

Handbook of Contemporary Techniques in the Fine Arts
(sections on painting--oil, watercolor, tempera)
The Brooklyn Museum, 1937 (rev. ed. 1939): 9-41.

Is Restoration Necessary?
Magazine of Art, vol. 30 (June 1937): 338-345.

Reclaiming an Early Ribera
Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, vol. 25 (1938): 117-126.

Transfer of a Small Icon to a Support of Vinyl Resin
Technical Studies in the Field of Fine Arts, vol. 9 (1940): 11-19.

Use of Infra-red Photography in the Study of Technique
Technical Studies in the Field of Fine Arts, vol. 9 (1941): 144-152.

The Technical Examination of Paintings
Brooklyn Museum Journal, 74 (1942): 71-82.

Photographic Record of the Condition of Paintings
Museum News, 1 February. 1948: 7-8.

On the Conservation of Early American Painting
Antiques, vol. 53 (1948): 52-54.

Laboratory Detection of Fraud
Magazine of Art, vol. 41 (1948): 172-178.

Care and Cleaning of Your Picture
Brooklyn Museum Bulletin, vol. 10 (1949): 1-12.

A Case of Artistic Face-lifting
Brooklyn Museum Bulletin, vol. 12 (1951): 17-20.

Conservation of Two Early Paintings
Antiques, vol. 63 (1953): 16-19.

The Care of Paintings New York History, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, New York, (January 1953): 105-120.

Conservation of Paintings
Winterthur Seminar on Museum Operation and Connoisseurship, A Resume of Papers and Discussions, The Henry Francis Du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware, 1956: 45-49.

Conservation in the U.S.A.: A Scandal?
(with Caroline K. Keck)
Art News, vol. 57, no. 8 (1958): 38-41.

On Education in Art Conservation
The Brooklyn Museum Bulletin, vol. 19, no. 3 (1958): 3-9.

The Radiography of Panel Paintings by Electron Emission
(with Charles F. Bridgman and Harold F. Sherwood)
Conservation, vol. 3, no. 4 (1958): 175-181.

Conservation Laboratory
The Brooklyn Museum Bulletin, 20 (1959): 25-26.

Treatment of a Bolognese 14th Century Painting
The Brooklyn Museum Bulletin 20, no. 4 (1959): 6-15.

Points of View
Museum News, vol. 39, no. 5 (1961): 13.

The Radiography of Paintings
(with C. F. Bridgman) Medical Radiography and Photography , vol. 37, no. 3 (1961): 62-70.

Conservation Laboratory
(with Caroline K. Keck) The Brooklyn Museum Annual, 2-3 (1960-1962): 100-102.

Report to the Rockefeller Foundation on the Conservation CenterInstitute of Fine Arts, New York University for 1961-62 (1962).

Training for Engineers in Conservation
Recent Advances in Conservation, editor G. Thomson, Butterworths, London, 1963: 199-201.

La radiografia dei quadri
(with C. F. Bridgman)
Bollettino kodak di radiografia, 1963, no. 16 (July 1963): 1-17.

Detection of an Epoxy-Resin Coating on a Seventeenth-Century Painting
(with Robert L. Feller)
Studies in Conservation, vol. 9, no. 1 (1964): 1-8.

The Past Preserved
Arts in Virginia, vol. 4, no. 3 (1964): 27-30.

First Aid for Art. The Conservation Center at New York University.
Museum News, vol. 43, no. 1 (September 1964): 13-17.

Homage to Paul Coremans: The Creator of a New Approach to Training Art Conservators
(with Caroline K. Keck)
Bulletin de l'Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique, 8 (1965): 73-76.

The New York Conservation of a Peripatetic Portrait by John Singleton Copley
Connoisseur, vol. 159, no. 640 (1965): 138-43.

Latin American Centre for the Study of the Conservation of Cultural Property Paul Coremans. January - April 1966.
(with Caroline K. Keck) 1966.

Report on the Mechanical Alteration of the Paint Film
ICOM Report 67/18, Brussels, 1967.

The Murray Pease Report: Standards of Practice and Professional Relationships for Conservators
(with Murray Pease, R. J. Gettens, Dudley T. Easby, and Henri G. Courtais)
The Murray Pease Report: Code of Ethics for Art and Conservators, Articles of Association of IIC, Bylaws of the American Group, New York: IIC-American Group, May 1968: 55-68.

Identification of Protein-Containing Paint Media by Quantitative Amino Acid Analysis
(with Theodore Peters, Jr.)
Studies in Conservation, 14 (1969): 75-82.

Mechanical Alteration of the Paint Film
Studies in Conservation, 14 (1969): 9-30.

Radiation and Optical Techniques in the Visual Examination of Paintings
Applied Optics, vol. 8, no. 1 (January 1969): 41-48.

Sheldon Keck on Restoration
The Designer, vol. 13, no. 154 (1970): 8, 11, 16, and 41.

Emergency Care of Museum Artifacts and Library Materials Affected by the Flood
(with Marilyn Kemp Weidner)
Cooperstown Graduate Programs: Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 27 June 1972, Cooperstown, New York.

A Little Training Can Be a Dangerous Thing
Museum News, vol. 52, no. 4 (December 1973): 40-42.

The Cooperstown Training Program in Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works
(with Caroline K. Keck)
Bulletin de l'Institut Royal Patrimoine Artistique, Miscellanea in Memoriam Paul Coremans, 1908-1965, 15 (1975): 193-200.

Commentary: University, Apprenticeship, Continuing Education
Preservation and Conservation: Principles and Practices, Proceedings of the North American International Regional Conference, Williamsburg..., Washington, The Preservation Press, 1976: 499-503.

The Life Expectancy of Materials and Problems of Increasing Visitor Use
Preservation and Conservation: Principles and Practices, Proceedings of the North American International Regional Conference, Williamsburg..., Washington, The Preservation Press, 1976: 327-339.

Further Materials for a History of Conservation
Preprints of Papers Presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Dearborn, Michigan, 1976, Washington, American Institute for Conservation, 1977: 11-19.

Some Picture Cleaning Controversies: Past and Present
Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, vol. 23, no. 2 (March 1984): 73-87.

Albert P. Ryder: His Technical Procedures
Albert Pinkham Ryder, Painter of Dreams, New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989: 175-184.

WAAC Newsletter thanks Caroline K. Keck for providing citations from the period 1935-1960. Thanks also to Jackie Zak, Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts, and the Getty Conservation Institute Library for providing citations from a search on BCIN, the bibliographic database of the Conservation Information Network.