AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

In July 2023, The Harvard Art Museums, in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, hosted Conserving Canvas: Cotton Duck. The workshop was funded through the Getty Foundation’s Conserving Canvas initiative and was the first structured, collaborative training opportunity to offer a comprehensive overview of the material characteristics of cotton duck and holistic approaches to its conservation. Workshop sessions, led by expert instructors from diverse backgrounds and specializations, covered the history of manufacture, supply, and use of cotton duck, aqueous light bleaching procedures and the effect of liquid water on cotton duck, alternatives to washing for local and overall treatment, and structural repairs including tear mending and suturing. The international participant cohort also brought valuable new perspectives to the workshop program, and by contributing their unique experiences and ideas, deepened and enriched the established discourse on the conservation of paintings on cotton fabric. A synthesis of the workshop’s inherently interdisciplinary and interconnected lessons will be presented here for the first time. The design, administration, and outcome of Conserving Canvas: Cotton Duck centered around the professional exchange between textiles and paintings disciplines. This type of contribution will hopefully foster increased interdisciplinary collaboration, while guiding fresh approaches to the preservation of modern and contemporary art.