Susan L. Buck, Ph.D.
Conservator of Painted Surfaces and Architectural Materials, Supplemental Faculty
Susan L. Buck is a conservator in private practice specializing in the analysis and conservation of painted surfaces on wooden objects and architectural materials. She has a BA with concentration in studio art from Williams College and an MBA from Boston University. Her dissertation study of the architectural paints at the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, SC was awarded the University of Delaware Wilbur Owen Sypherd Prize for the outstanding doctoral dissertation in the Humanities in 2003. After completing her MS from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, she worked for seven years at the SPNEA Conservation Center as a furniture conservator and microscopist before entering the University of Delaware Ph.D. Program in Art Conservation Research. She has taught cross-section microscopy analysis and alternative cleaning system methods in the WUDPAC program for six years and supervised graduate interns since 1995. She brings real-world projects into the classroom, including the analysis and conservation of the paints and gilding on the interior of the 1771-76 Emperor’s Lodge of Retirement in the Forbidden City, early wallpapers and paints found trapped in the walls at Montpelier, the paints on the interior and exterior of the Mount Vernon Gardener’s House, and original exterior paints from Colonial Williamsburg.
