Bart Devolder

Bart J. C. Devolder is the chief conservator at the Princeton University Art Museum. He has studied, published, and lectured on a wide variety of topics, ranging from ancient portraits from the Fayum in Egypt to Early Netherlandish canvas paintings and the representation of gold brocades, as well as the methods and techniques of Cubist paintings. He is also particularly interested in the newer applications of computer sciences to the study of old master paintings. Together with Princeton’s Materials Institute, Princeton’s Council on Science and Technology (CST), and Princeton’s Department of Art and Archaeology, Devolder is an active member of several working groups, whose goal is to create and facilitate interdisciplinary research on Princeton’s campus. Devolder works to connect with people and students from different backgrounds and disciplines, using knowledge about the ways artworks are created as a catalyst. 

Devolder has worked for the Kimbell Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, first as assistant conservator of paintings (2007–10) and later as associate conservator of paintings (2010–12). Before joining the Museum in the summer of 2018, he was the on-site coordinator and paintings conservator for the restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck (2012–18). Since 2018 he has been a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Ghent Altarpiece, and since 2024 he has been a member of the Advisory Committee for the restoration of Rembrandt’s Night Watch. 

Devolder received his MA in paintings conservation in 2002 from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp, Belgium). He held internships at the Akademia Sztuk Pieknych (Krakow, Poland), the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) (Brussels, Belgium), and the Musée du Louvre (Paris, France). Devolder also received a fellowship from the Straus Center for Conservation at the Harvard University Art Museums (2003–04) and was the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Painting Conservation at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (2004–07).