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Current Projects

Christina Cole (Began September 2006)
Chris’s background has focused mainly on applied R&D towards the development of biosensors for trace clinical/environmental monitoring, and culminated in the development of patent-pending surface coating technology for metal oxide/nitride surfaces.  Two years ago, she joined the Smithsonian Institution and the field of conservation science.  While at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, her focus was on the identification of natural red dyes on Chinese ancestor portraits from the Qing dynasty, with particular attention towards enhancement of sensitivity for samples on the order of a nanogram or less.  Currently with the National Air and Space Museum, she provides technical and administrative support to the conservation unit in the preparation of reports, collection of data, and care of the collection; she is also the lead chemist for the museum’s chemical treatment lab, in support of restoration and preservation activities.  Chris graduated Phi Beta Kappa summa cum laude from N.C. State University in 1996 (B.S., Chemistry), and from the University of Michigan in 1998 (M.S., Analytical Chemistry).  Over a two-year period in Florence, she was trained in varnish removal, inpainting, and general restoration theory for c. 15th-16th century Western European canvases.

TOPIC:  The scientific analysis of dyes used on pre-1850s Eastern Woodlands quillwork using chromatography (HPLC, GC-MS, MS-MS), electrochemistry, and spectroscopy (NMR, IR, fluorescence) as appropriate to determine the principal dye colorant on the quillwork.  By focusing on a time period prior to the North American introduction of synthetic aniline dyes (post 1856), she will limit colorants to only those naturally occurring; the limited number of natural dyes, together with existing historical and ethnobotanical references, may make it possible to identify the colorant present, and also to suggest probable sources for the particular dyestuff.   The results of Christina’s research will be interpreted in contexts relevant to Native and non-Native conservators, curators, historians, anthropologists, and contemporary quillworkers in order to address current questions concerning Native American quillwork dyes up to the mid-19th century.

Marina Dobronovskaya (began September 2006)
Marina’s background is in professional archival work and research in historic preservation. She graduated from the Moscow State Historical-Archival Institute (now the Russian State University for Humanities) in 1980 with the equivalent of a Masters degree in archive management and history. During that training she completed studies in archive and library management and in Ancient History, Middle Ages, and Modern History; also in the history of Russia from ancient times through the Soviet period. She also took courses in orthographic study, especially of Old Russian language, as well as training in practical skills of reading of archival documents from the 17th-19th centuries. After graduating from the institute, she worked from 1980 to 1987 as an archivist in one of the then Soviet central state archives. There, she was in charge of creating a cataloging and organizations system for historical materials deposited with the archive by state scientific and technical design institutions. In 1988, she took a position of Specialist of Art and Architectural History in the Soviet State Research and Design Institute for Historical Preservation of the USSR Ministry of Culture. This Institute dealt with the documentation and preservation of historic sites and monuments of architecture. She worked in this Institute and its post-Soviet successors until 1998 as an archive researcher and a historian of architectural sites.

TOPIC: Reconstruction of cities in The USSR following World War II. During the war, many of Russia’s oldest cities were occupied and partially or completely destroyed. Thus, the problem of reconstruction was of historical importance in order to preserve the country’s architectural heritage. Competing with this priority, however, was an equally pressing concern to house millions of people displaced during the war. Reconstructing urban environments for mass living was doubly important, given the large-scale industrialization that had occurred during the 1930s, and the lack of significant urban planning and construction that had accompanied rapid industrialization. Soviet planners, thus, were faced with two often conflicting goals after the war: to reconstruct historical cities in a way that would preserve their past, but at the same time to provide mass housing for millions of citizens. These conflicting demands were not unique to the Soviet Union; she will examine specific examples of historic reconstruction in the USSR in a comparative context to other European countries, and possibly to urban development in the United States after the war.

Richard C. Wolbers (began September 2007)
Associate Professor and Coordinator of Science and Adjunct Paintings Conservator for the Winterthur/UD Master’s-level program in Art Conservation, Wolbers received a B.S. degree in biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego, in 1971. He also received an M.F.A. degree from the same institution in painting in 1977. In 1984, he earned an M.S. degree in art conservation from WUDPAC. His research interests include work in developing cleaning systems for fine art materials, as well as microscopically applied techniques for the characterization of paint binding materials. He has collaborated on research projects with The Getty Conservation Institute, Columbia University, and ICCROM in Rome. He has conducted workshops on his cleaning methods in Australia, England, Canada, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Italy and various locations throughout the United States. In winter, 1991, he was featured on “Infinite Voyage,” and presented an interactive satellite lecture from the University of Pittsburgh campus. In 2000 he published Cleaning Paintings: Aqueous Methods (Archetype Books, London), and has co-authored a chapter in Furniture Conservation (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003).

TOPIC: The feasibility of adapting polarity-sensitive fluorescent probes or dyes as “reporter” molecules for characterizing specific lipid/pigment interactions or micro-domains within artists’ painting materials. While these kinds of materials are routinely used in the biological sciences, this project represents a novel and new application of these types of probes to a non-biological field. The analytical characterization of museum art and artifacts is a routine part of the stewardship and conservation of these types of cultural materials. But “analysis” may often be taken to simply mean, in this context, looking at the bulk materials that comprise these kinds of objects (e.g., for paintings, the questions may often be simply, is it an oil paint? Or, was basic lead carbonate used as the principal pigmenting material?). The rapid characterization of the principal binding materials, pigments, and related film-forming materials in artist’s paints, for instance, has kept pace with advances in relevant areas of instrumental analysis. State-of-the-art micro FTIR, Raman, Mass-spectrometry, and X-ray fluorescence techniques currently found in most major museum laboratories can yield accurate, rapid results with increasingly smaller complements of samples. It should be possible to take advantage of many of the readily commercially available fluorescent polarity sensitive dyes now available to look more closely at the various domains that exist within artist paints.

Amanda Norbutus (began September 2008)
Amanda’s background has focused mainly on the surface analysis of art, as well as method development for the non-destructive detection and quantification of biological pheromones by liquid-chromatography/mass spectrometry. Amanda was majoring in history with a chemistry minor at the College of the Holy Cross when she studied abroad at the University of Sussex in 2003. While in Brighton, she was introduced to art conservation as well as the science that contributed to authentication and preservation. After graduation from Holy Cross (B.A, 2005), she spent the year at the College of William and Mary to finish the remaining courses for a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. While in Williamsburg, she interned at the Muscarelle Museum of Art, where she learned to arrange artwork and contributed pertinent data on the Art ReDiscovery network. Recently, Amanda performed a technical investigation of the materials and methods used in a Dutch genre painting as part of her master’s thesis in analytical chemistry (M.S., Villanova University, 2008).

TOPIC: The assessment of a newly formulated removable protective coating for painted and architectural surfaces will be performed using chromatography (SEC, GC-MS, LC-MS), microscopy (light, fluorescence, SEM, TEM, AFM) spectrometry, and spectroscopy (FT-IR, Raman) as necessary to determine rheology, polymeric bonding, pH, binding strength, flexibility, surface adhesion, and viscosity of the cured coating. The coating is likely to be used primarily to protect the colorful wall murals found in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dublin from outdoor elements, graffiti, pollution, and weathering. However, the scope of the project will also test the coating’s applicability to other architectural surfaces, such as historical buildings and floors. The development of this coating will also focus upon selecting the appropriate solvent or water-based system that can safely and completely remove the coating after it has cured. The results of Amanda’s research will provide a novel product that will enhance the appearance and increase the lifetime of the painted wall murals and other architectural surfaces.

Melissa Blair (begins September 2009) Melissa is an architectural historian with expertise in documenting and evaluating cultural landscapes and historic sites throughout the Eastern Seaboard, having held positions at the Bostonian Society (Boston’s Historical Society and Museum), the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, and a Mid-Atlantic cultural resources management firm. Her research interests include traditional cultural properties, New Deal era public housing, and mid twentieth-century suburban resources. For the last five years, she has worked for the Maryland State Highway Administration, where she leads a team of architectural historians and archeologists responsible for conducting all aspects of the Section 106 process for transportation projects. Melissa graduated from Grinnell College in 1997 (B.A., American Studies), and from the University of South Carolina in 2002 (M.A., Public History/Historic Preservation). Currently, she is co-authoring a book on Art Deco architecture in Washington D.C. and Baltimore, accepted for publication by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

TOPIC: Nineteenth-century domestic outbuildings of the Mid-Atlantic. Springhouses, summer kitchens, bake ovens, smokehouses, root cellars, ice houses, dairies, washhouses, and other small buildings were sites of intense activity and production, integral parts of farmsteads. Seemingly simple structures, these outbuildings speak to the ways that people manipulated their land, organized work, produced and preserved food, and manufactured and cared for the contents of their households. As cultural artifacts, outbuildings reveal patterns of familial interaction, divisions of labor, evolving household technology, and regional architectural characteristics. When examined in the context of emerging industrialization, these buildings point to changing social constructs, environmental values, and economic and demographic conditions. Melisa will study the prototypes, chronology, geographic distribution, construction, and use of domestic outbuildings as a means to broaden our knowledge of rural life in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Current advisors: David Ames, Rebecca Sheppard, Ritchie Garrison

Dawn Rogala (begins September 2009)
Dawn is a 2006 graduate of the art conservation program at Buffalo State College/State University of New York, where she specialized in paintings conservation and received a Master of Arts degree and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Art Conservation. During her graduate training, Dawn completed internships at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven), and the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford). Dawn’s graduate research included a study of Hans Hofmann’s late-career ground layer materials. In addition to her U.S. training, Dawn has studied and worked in Italy (Florence and Rome) and the Netherlands, most recently contributing to treatments at the Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg in Maastricht. In the summer of 2009, Dawn completed the second of two post-graduate fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution. A collaborative project between the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Dawn’s research focused on the unique failure characteristics of ground layer materials used in Abstract Expressionist paintings.

TOPIC: Materials and techniques of Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann. Hofmann (1880-1966) had an unparalleled influence on modern American painting. Though his own work played a formative role in post-war American art, his true legacy is widely acknowledged to be his far-reaching influence as a teacher. Hofmann brought the theories of Europe to a new generation of American artists, and his message regarding the “push and pull” of color and form played a major role in the birth of what would become known as Abstract Expressionism. Many of today’s prominent artists can claim a direct lineage to Hofmann. Challenges faced by those seeking to preserve Hofmann’s legacy are complicated by the lack of published materials analysis and research. A variety of materials have been found during the conservation treatment of Hofmann’s paintings, but no comprehensive study has tracked his use of materials over the course of his career. A thorough catalogue of the artist’s pigments and binding media is needed to document long-standing preferences, and bring to light any conscious shifts in materials (particularly during the emergence of new painting media in the mid-20th century). Key information on Hofmann’s technique may also reside in the class notes and commentary of those remaining students who were the direct observers of his evolving creative process. Dawn’s research will include the analytical examination of Hofmann’s paintings in combination with a review of related primary literature and successful conservation treatments to date. The goal of this research is a comprehensive reference guide that will aid in the preservation of Hofmann’s work and the work of those artists who came after him.

Current Advisors: Joyce Hill Stoner, Jennifer Mass, Roberta Tarbell, Andrew Teplyakov, Joe Weber