The Future of Conservation at the Princeton University Art Museum

Among the features of the new Museum are the state-of-the-art conservation studios that extend over two floors and 3,600 square feet, vastly expanding the conservation team’s spaces for treatment, research, and teaching. The elegant and functional design reflects a collaboration among Adjaye Associates, Cooper Robertson, Princeton’s Chief Conservator Bart Devolder, and Samuel Anderson Architects—a firm that has facilitated the conservation spaces of other institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In the old facility, the build-out of the conservation studio reflected a prioritization of the treatment of paintings. However, just under 10 percent of the Museum’s globe-spanning collections consists of such works. Therefore, it has been necessary to contract conservators in private practice to work on objects that comprise the other 90 percent, including three-dimensional sculpture, archaeological materials, photographs, and works on paper. The new studios will allow the Museum to add these related conservation specialties and expand its conservation team, an effort that began with the addition of Elena Torok, the inaugural associate objects conservator, in 2022.

In addition to the Museum’s desire to develop a conservation program encompassing all specialties, the new studios account for significant changes in the conservation profession over the last few decades. The field has increasingly placed a strong emphasis on the need for scientific rigor and transparency, resulting in greater efforts toward public outreach. The opportunity to design spaces that account for all these considerations and, importantly, provide the flexibility to accommodate more conservation specialties in the future was an exciting opportunity.

Adjacent to the galleries, on the second floor of the new building, visitors will encounter the conservation vestibule, a space where conservation-related installations will be displayed. Visitors will also be able to catch a glimpse of the conservators at work through the two windows in the double doors to the studios. The 2,000-square-foot space behind the doors will house both paper and objects conservation. Each area will have ample room and highly specialized equipment to carry out day-to-day treatment and research activities. The studios will also feature new equipment, including a suction and humidification table (for the cleaning and structural treatment of works on paper) as well as a laser (for reducing soiling on materials such as stone, plaster, and terracotta). Connected to this first level is a 400-square-foot study room that will serve as a nexus for object-based teaching, which has been fundamental to the Museum since its inception.

The paintings conservation space is located on the second level of the studios (and third floor of the Museum); together with an examination room, it measures around 1,200 square feet. Just like the studios on the floor below, the paintings conservation studio will house new, highly technical equipment, including a lowmass suction hot table for the consolidation of paint layers and structural work on canvas paintings. The examination room will support collaborations between conservators, faculty, and students. This room will be outfitted for a wide range of artwork examination methods, including infrared reflectography (IRR)—made possible by a generous donation from Barbara and Gerald Essig; ultraviolet induced fluorescence (UV); visible-induced infrared luminescence (VIL); and X-ray imaging. An interest in cross-departmental and multidisciplinary collaborations has long been championed at Princeton. In recent years this has resulted in several successful events, projects, and lectures organized in close partnership with Princeton’s Council on Science and Technology, Materials Institute, and Department of Art & Archaeology. With the creation of these new conservation studios, collaborations celebrating a shared interest in the fascinating world of materials will certainly continue and expand.

Access to daylight is critical in certain areas of conservation work, particularly inpainting (i.e., retouching damaged portions of an artwork). In the new studios, daylight will be brought in from the north through a specially designed finlike structure that sits atop the roof. A shaft between the second and third floors will allow for light to be pulled into the studios below, sufficiently lighting all areas.

With the conservation studios set to open with the Museum on October 31, 2025, further plans to grow the conservation team are underway, hopefully to include a paper conservator and a conservation studios coordinator, which will build out the current two-person team—Bart Devolder and Elena Torok, who focus on paintings and objects, respectively. The hope is that this core staff will be expanded to include interns enrolled in graduate conservation programs as well as undergraduates in pre-program positions, which will create opportunities for students to learn about the conservation profession. As we near the new Museum’s opening, we look forward to sharing more conservation stories and ultimately to welcoming visitors into the studios for behind-the-scenes tours. 

Bart Devolder 
Chief Conservator