News and Events

Between 2020 and 2021, the NICS team has worked on a Special Issue of the open access journal Heritage Science. The collection, entitled "The Network Initiative for Conservation Science (NICS): Building Bridges across New York City Museums", features eight articles on collaborative research carried out with other New York City museums. These articles, available for free download on the journal's website, illustrate fascinating discoveries on the complex history of repainting of Alexander Calder's motorized sculptures; the degradation and laser cleaning of outdoor bronze statues in Central Park; the secret drawing techniques of 18th-century English draftsman Thomas Gainsborough; the materials of historical photographs from Arctic expeditions; the fleeting colors and obscured surfaces of three Van Gogh paintings; the indigenous decorative technique of a 17th-century lacquered gourd from Colombia; details of the manufacture of Italian Renaissance statuettes by Bertoldo di Giovanni; and museum-applied coatings and the original polychromy of Tsimshian house posts.

View the Special Issue

The third NICS Annual Symposium was held on Thursday, October 24th, 2019, in the Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall. The symposium showcased research that Met scientists Federica Pozzi and Elena Basso performed in collaboration with conservators from the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum, the Central Park Conservancy, The Hispanic Society of America, The Morgan Library & Museum, and the New York Public Library. Projects highlights included work on a Northwest Coast village model, objects crafted by Tiffany artisans, Central Park outdoor sculptures, a barniz de Pasto decorated gourd, hand-colored European block books, and a selection of photographs from Arctic expeditions.

View the book of abstracts (PDF).

The second NICS Annual Symposium was held on Wednesday, November 14, 2018, in the Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall. Conservators from the Brooklyn Museum, the Central Park Conservancy, The Frick Collection, The Hispanic Society of America, The Morgan Library and Museum, and the New York Public Library delivered fascinating talks on their research on Roldán terracotta groups, Coptic manuscripts, drawings by Thomas Gainsborough, Central Park outdoor sculptures, Romano-Egyptian funerary portraits, rare Mexican documents, and bronzes by Bertoldo di Giovanni, carried out in collaboration with Met scientists Federica Pozzi and Elena Basso.

View the book of abstracts (PDF).

The first NICS Annual Symposium, held at The Met on Monday, September 18, 2017, in the Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, showcased research conducted by NICS scientists Federica Pozzi and Anna Cesaratto in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum, the Frick Collection, the Hispanic Society of America, the Museum of Modern Art, the Morgan Library and Museum, the New York Public Library, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

In the first year of activities, the NICS team has worked on a number of collaborative research projects investigating a great variety of artworks, ranging from modern and contemporary paintings to three dimensional objects, from ancient textiles and garments to works on paper and photographic prints. Works of art investigated span 2,600 years and represent cultures from all over the world.

The first Annual Symposium provided an interdisciplinary forum for all 133 participants, including scientists, conservators, and curators, to share experiences and ideas in all areas of cultural heritage research. Highlights from the symposium include work with the Whitney Museum on a selection of paintings by Carmen Herrera shedding light on the history of availability and use of solvent-based acrylic paints in post-war Europe, as well as a study of the inks, mineral pigments, and natural dyes used in Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts from the collection of the Morgan Library.

View the book of abstracts (PDF).