Training in the Conservation of Paintings - Calouste Gulbenkian ...

TRAINING IN THE CONSERVATION OF PAINTINGS
Need for a Centre of Conservation and Training
25. While the Government Temporary Training Scheme may prove
an admirable stop-gap, we are satisfied, as a result of our review of
the existing conservation services, that some more permanent provision
ought to be made for the future. This is not only a question
of providing more facilities for training. We are convinced that there
is another important element which is conspicuous by its absence:
this is some central and independent point of reference, study and
authority to which the separate bodies can turn for discussion, help
and advice, or to which they can send work involving particularly
difficult problems. Even if the establishments in the public museums
and galleries were increased to the size recommended by their
authorities, if conservation departments were provided in some of
the institutions which now have none, and if all the resulting vacancies
could be filled, there would still remain this serious lack of a
central point of reference. In these circumstances indeed, a centre
would become even more necessary. The number of different places
where conservation work is being undertaken, whether by the staff of
museums and galleries, or by the Area Museum Councils, or by
independent restorers, has already greatly increased and is increasing.
When one considers the number of important collections which
rely on the services of individual independent restorers (see paragraph
16,2) the lack of a focal point for information and consultation
becomes very clear. Certainly many individual restorers and curators
achieve an admirable relationship of this kind with the relevant
specialists in the national institutions, but the national institutions
have very limited capacity to undertake work on other than their
own collections. We are convinced that a Central Conservation Institute
is needed, to undertake, subject to priorities, the restoration
of paintings and drawings in public or private ownership, to constitute
an authoritative source of advice, and to form a centre of discussion
and study, with the necessary appurtenances of library and
documentary and photographic archives.
26. As will be seen from the next chapter, in which we consider the
elements which our witnesses have advised us are essential to the
training of restorers, we are forced to the conclusion that if there is
one element in training which is wholly indispensable, it is a long
period of work in close association with a trained restorer, who is
himself engaged not merely, or even primarily, in teaching, but in
the serious restoration of works of art of high quality and adequate
variety. Although there are aspects of the restorer's training which
can be supplied in class or in lectures, this apprenticeship element
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