Conservation Education: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC)
December 1, 2014
Video:
View video (88 minutes)
About the Lecture:
Image credit: University of Delaware Art Conservation Department
In 1974, the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC) accepted its first graduate class of six students towards a masters of science in the conservation of artistic and historic objects. With the graduation of the Class of 2014, the program has produced 364 conservators 
who have conserved and preserved, among other symbols of our cultural heritage, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Star-Spangled Banner, the Treaty of Paris, the Dead Sea Scrolls, works of art from all eras and cultures, Babe Ruth’s baseball contract, the original R2D2 from the movie Star Wars, the world’s first photograph, Elvis Presley’s 81 gold records, the 1905 Wright Flyer III, George Washington’s dentures, Franklin Roosevelt’s braces, and the architectural interiors of Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, the Capitol, and the White House.
WUDPAC graduates have, in turn, taught and continue to teach conservators and conservation leaders active today as well as the next generation of conservators. Several conservators at the Library of Congress are graduates of WUDPAC and the Library's Conservation Division has, since the 1970s, consistently hosted WUDPAC students for their final-year internship before graduating. Of the four speakers for the program, three completed their internships in the Library of Congress Conservation Division.
This TOPS program marks the fourth and final in a series started in 2010 to commemorate significant anniversary years of the U.S. conservation graduate programs that teach library and archive conservation.
Speakers:
Welcome and Introductions by Elmer Eusman, Chief, Conservation Division, Library of Congress and Andrew Robb, Head, Special Formats Conservation Section, Library of Congress
Debra Hess Norris, Henry Francis DuPont Chair of Fine Arts and Professor, Art Conservation Department, University of Delaware
Lois Olcott Price, Director of Conservation and Affiliated Assistant Professor, WUDPAC
Doris Hamburg, Director, Preservation Programs, National Archives and Records Administration
Alisha Chipman, Photograph Conservator, National Gallery of Art
Related TOPS:
Celebrating 50 Years of Cultural Heritage Conservation Training at New York University, 2010
