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Photography: Processes, Preservation, and Conservation
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Sherman Fairchild Center for Works on Paper and Photograph Conservation
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Photograph Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photographs, which have for 160 years so magically recorded our world, are delicate objects, subject to handling damage, environmental degradation, and flaws in their own chemistry. Anyone who has pulled a family photo album or box of snapshots from a dusty attic or a damp basement is likely to have found faded images, washed-out color prints, or pictures frayed, bent, scratched, torn, stained from tape or glue, or even mildewed. Because fine art photographs are also subject to these ills, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has established a state-of-the-art facility devoted to the examination, analysis, preservation, and treatment of its photographic collection, one of the finest in the world. The new eight thousand-square-foot Sherman Fairchild Center for Works on Paper and Photograph Conservation includes a darkroom, chemistry laboratory, photographic documentation and infrared-camera room, microscopy laboratory, vacuum tables, treatment sinks, and technical instrumentation for shared use by paper and photograph conservators as well as a library, seminar room, and matting and framing studio. Here, photograph conservators care for the Museum's photographic holdings, undertake research, disseminate information, train future conservators, and advance the field of photograph conservation. Specialists in conservation, science, art history, and related fields collaborate to achieve a fuller understanding of the complexity and beauty of the works of art in their care and to preserve them for future generations.
Photograph conservators not only treat damaged and deteriorated works but also examine, document, and analyze them, recommend proper storage and housing, and monitor environmental conditions, such as light, temperature, relative humidity, and air quality, that affect the health of the collection.
The most common treatments for photographs are physical—mending a tear, relaxing a crease, or surface cleaning. Chemical treatments to revive faded or stained images are generally avoided, since they are experimental, unpredictable, and irreversible. Written, photographic, and analytical documentation are always an essential part of the treatment process, and professional conservators follow the Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice established by the American Institute for Conservation.
A complete technical understanding of photographic processes, from the early daguerreotype to the contemporary ink-jet print, enables the conservator to consider a photograph's place within the history or aesthetics of its time as well as within an individual artist's career. The Sherman Fairchild Center includes a darkroom equipped to re-create the full range of historic processes, enabling conservators and students to gain a detailed technical understanding of older works in the collection. Experimental samples produced here are also used in analytical studies and in accelerated aging tests to investigate the makeup and long-term stability of specific processes.
The seminar room for classes, meetings, and workshops houses a library of technical literature on photography and conservation and a study collection of photographic samples. The Center maintains an ongoing program of internships, fellowships, and special projects for students and novice conservators from around the world. The Center also hosts conferences, workshops, and training sessions in which professionals in related fields can exchange information, present research, and further the understanding of the many issues involved in preservation.
See the Hazen Center for information about the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) and the Image Permanence Institute (IPI), as well as a list of online resources related to conservation.
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