Art Institute of Chicago Appoints New Conservators

The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to announce the appointments of new conservators in two departments at the museum: Antoinette Owen as senior conservator of prints and drawings, and Sylvie Pénichon as conservator of photographs. Owen and Pénichon join the staff of more than 25 conservators and conservation scientists in multiple conservation centers and laboratories at the museum, including paintings, objects, photographs, prints and drawings, textiles, and research science.

"One of our missions here is to protect works of art for future generations," said Douglas Druick, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute. "As a result, we have built, over the decades, world-class facilities and a staff of conservators and scientists to ensure the longevity and integrity of our works of art. The appointments of Antoinette Owen and Sylvie Pénichon, both accomplished professionals with significant research to their respective names, allow us to continue to lead the field in cutting-edge scientific inquiry as well as the use of the most advanced techniques and processes to preserve and protect our collection."

Antoinette Owen, who begins her tenure at the Art Institute on January 6, 2014, was the head paper conservator at the Brooklyn Museum, which she joined in 1986. There she founded the paper conservation department and designed a laboratory now staffed with several conservators and one preparator who treat a diverse paper-based collection with holdings from a variety of cultures and time periods. Owen and her department were heavily involved in two major exhibitions earlier this year: Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum and John Singer Sargent Watercolors. These exhibitions required extensive conservation treatments and technical analysis with material research, as reflected in essays in both catalogues.

A graduate of Newcomb College at Tulane University, Owen received her MA and Certificate of Advanced Study in Art Conservation from the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works Program in Cooperstown, New York. Her wide experience includes teaching a graduate course at Pratt Institute and conducting a pre-graduate conservation internship program at the Brooklyn Museum; serving as the consulting paper conservator to the Montclair Art Museum and the Jewish Museum; early training and experience as conservator of prints and drawings at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; receiving a Mellon Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and even a brief previous period at the Art Institute working with former paper conservator David Chandler.

Sylvie Pénichon, joining the museum on December 30, 2013, is similarly returning to the Art Institute of Chicago after more than eleven years as conservator of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. From 1998 to 2001, Pénichon was the inaugural Mellon Fellow in Photography Conservation at the Art Institute; she now returns to Chicago to serve as conservator of photographs. While at the Amon Carter, Pénichon built the department of photography conservation, including its facility, staff, and protocols. She supervised a survey of the collection, produced four exhibitions and two books, and gained worldwide recognition in her field, administering master-class workshops in Taiwan, Mexico, Greece, Russia, and New Zealand. She has expertise in the earliest photographic technologies as well as in contemporary art, and her most recent publication-a comprehensive survey of twentieth-century color photography-has been acclaimed as definitive on this subject.

Pénichon will be helping to oversee implementation of a three-year grant of $280,000 awarded to the Department of Photography by the National Endowment for the Humanities for an assessment and cataloguing of the permanent collection, now 23,000 works strong. In addition to bringing all collection records up to date and treating or rehousing some 2,500 photographs, the grant will enable the Art Institute to increase online presentations of the collection, such as an e-book version of a unique album of aerial photographs from World War I assembled under the command of Edward Steichen, then head of photography for the United States Air Force. The e-book will contain expert military, historical, and technical commentary on many of the album's 83 fragile leaves, which are all also in need of conservation treatment.

Pénichon's arrival at the Art Institute coincides with the recent establishment of the Karen and Jim Frank Fund for Photography Conservation, a major endowed fund to encourage projects in conservation tied to the museum's temporary exhibitions and permanent collection in photography. Current projects include the co-organization, with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a full retrospective (2016-2017) of the art of László Moholy-Nagy (1896-1946), a Bauhaus master known for his work across media. The Art Institute is spearheading an unprecedented conservation project to examine the all the media of Moholy-Nagy, from metallic or atomized paints to plastics to various photographic processes, to name just a few. The results of this work will be disseminated across multiple platforms, including online and in an exhibition catalogue.