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

CONCLUSIONS
the conservation department of the museum or gallery on paintings
of high quality and wide variety from its own collection; moreover,
without disturbing the work of the museum or gallery, it might be
possible for the Institute to share some of its administrative facilities,
equipment, library etc. The established reputation of the museum
or gallery also might encourage owners to entrust material to the
new Institute. After consideration, however, it became plain that
any true administrative attachment would be open to the same objections
of changed responsibilities and divided interests that we
saw to the extension of the temporary training scheme. We were
also inclined to doubt whether the Central Institute which we had
in mind ought to be labelled as it inevitably would be, with the particular
theories and philosophy belonging to a given museum or
gallery. We believe, therefore, that the Institute should not be administratively
attached to a museum or gallery.
80. At the same time we regard the cooperation and interest of the
national museums and galleries as a matter of the first importance
to the Central Institute. We conceive that the Institute would wish
them to be associated, by representation on its governing body or
otherwise, with its policy; and we would above all hope that the
national institutions would make their conservation departments as
accessible as possible to its students, as well as to those who would
use the Institute for research and other purposes. These considerations
would have a bearing on the siting of such an institute. If, for
instance, the addition promised for the future to the Tate Gallery
site should prove to afford space, our objection to administrative
attachment would certainly not extend to sharing a site. On the
other hand the National Maritime Museum, whose physical capacity
for expansion of its conservation training, given the necessary increase
in staff, is greater at present than that of the National or Tate
Galleries, would seem to us too remote from the centres of art and
conservation in London for us to consider it a suitable location for
a central institute.
Association of the Central Institute with an Educational Institution
81. We have also considered the possibility of attaching the Institute
to an existing educational establishment; a polytechnic, an art
school, or a university. The immediate advantage of such a proposal,
besides the economical use of common administrative and other
services, would clearly be automatic eligibility of the students for
Government maintenance grants. Against it, in the case of all educational
establishments whose expenditure has ultimately to be justi-
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