Technical Art History Seminar at UD in Early May

The Art Conservation Department is very pleased to be collaborating with the Art History Department to present a major two-day seminar on issues of Technical Art History May 6-7. As David Bomford noted in the Forbes Prize Lecture at IIC London, September 2009:

“Technical art history concerns itself with all the processes for making art, and the technical and documentary means by which we throw light on those processes. It is principally concerned with the physical materials and structures of works of art and how they are prepared, used, combined and manipulated – but (and this is what makes technical art history so intellectually satisfying) it also interests itself in how an artist arrived at the finished – or, indeed unfinished work. It charts the stages of invention, development, realization, elaboration and revision: in short, it is a route into – it is our access to - the heart of the artist’s intentions and changing ambitions.”

The seminar has crystallized around Bomford’s invited Art History presentation for May 6 on unfinished paintings. Bomford, now of the Getty Museum and formerly of the National Gallery, London, has consented to act as one of the major discussants for the next-day seminar organized by David Stone (ARTH) and Joyce Hill Stoner (ARTC). Stone and Stoner hope that the seminar will generate much discussion among the participants and future collaborations among art historians and art conservators.

May 6, 5:30 pm
David Bomford, J. Paul Getty Museum Unfinished Paintings: Artists, Collectors, and the Non Finito Gore Recital Hall, Roselle Center for Performing Arts

May 7, 9:30 am - 1:00 pm
Thinking with the Painter: Art Historians and Art Conservators Collaborate
Trabant University Center Theatre

9:30-9:35 Welcome: Nina Kallmyer and Debra Hess Norris (Chairs of the departments of Art History and Art Conservation, UD)
9:35-9:40 David M. Stone and Joyce Hill Stoner: Introduction
9:40-9:50 David Bomford (J. Paul Getty Museum) “Technical art history and artistic intention”

Session I Moderator: Joyce Hill Stoner

9:50-10:30 KEYNOTE LECTURE:
Anthea Callen (Nottingham University) “Practice Matters: the methods and materials of Impressionism”

10:30-10:40 Discussion

10:40- 10:55 BREAK

Session II Moderator: David Bomford

10:55-11:15 Gridley McKim-Smith (Bryn Mawr College) “Unfinished Velázquezes: What Do They Tell Us?”

11:15-11:35 David M. Stone (University of Delaware) “Multiplicity:
Five Versions of Guercino’s Salome visiting St. John in Prison”

11:35-11:55 Discussion

Session III Moderator: David M. Stone

12:00-12:20 Wendy Bellion (University of Delaware) “Whose Views? Recovering the Artists’ Viewpoints in the Birchs’ City of Philadelphia”

12:20-12:40 Joyce Hill Stoner (University of Delaware) “Whistler’s Labor-Intensive Evanescence [and how he borrowed from his friends in order to be original]”

12:40-1:00 Discussion, closing remarks