Choosing a Specialization
Many of our students develop an interest in a specialty through pre-program exposure, their cultural and academic background, or personal experiences. As part of the admissions process, applicants should have an understanding of their conservation specialty and are asked to rank their preferences. This specialty preference is taken into consideration to help the department build a diverse, well-rounded, and exceptional cohort of students. SUNY Buffalo State University currently offers specializations in paper, photograph, book/library archive, paintings, and objects conservation. Within these specializations, students may explore additional sub-specialties and individual interests under the guidance of the faculty through specific projects, guest lectures, and consultations with experts. Due to current faculty expertise and funding, it may not be possible to accommodate all sub-specialties. For example, textiles, furniture, and time-based media are not currently offered; however, occasional guest lectures in these areas may be included to enhance the curriculum. Our main goal is to expose all students to a broad range of carefully curated conservation topics, both within and outside of their specialty.
Accommodating Individual Interests
We have regular guest lecturers in books and photograph conservation that teach quarterly and advise students.
Individual interests can be addressed during the second year of study. Faculty advise students on summer experiences to gain more specialized knowledge and strive to find conservation treatments that complement each student's interests.
Objects
Objects majors treat a wide variety of three-dimensional materials.
Recent Projects have included:
- Modern sculptures by Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely
- An iron caldron from a local archaeological excavation
- Ancient Egyptian cartonnage mummy-coverings
- Roman coins and blown glass, an ivory "swift" made on board a whaling ship
- A waterlogged nineteenth-century wooden water main
- Pomo Indian baskets
- A seventeenth-century iron strongbox
- Nineteenth-century bronze sculptures
- A Worcester porcelain compote
- An Empire style model bureau/bookcase
- An eighteenth-century doll
Paintings
A wide variety of canvas and panel paintings are treated in the paintings laboratory, as well as more unusual supports such as copper, tinned iron, rawhide, cardboard or Masonite. Students learn how to clean, stabilize, and assess damage to a wide range of painting mediums, support, and frames.
Recent department projects have included paintings by:
- Alex Fournier
- Rudolf Ray
- Henry Inman
- Victor Varsarely
- Hans Hofmann
Paper
In paper conservation, students work on fine art prints and drawings, historic posters and maps, and many other diverse paper artifacts. Photographs and books are also treated.
In addition to their conservation treatments, students also learn techniques for the preparation of a diverse range of housings for paper artifacts, including folders, encapsulations, window mats and sealed framing systems for paper artifacts they reinstall in the original historic frames. Students also carry out special research projects many of which result in presentations or publication in professional venues. Recent projects include the history and treatment of photo buttons, the use of paper splitting for the preservation of books and archival materials, and the use of reducing agents in paper washing and bleaching.
Recent projects have included:
- A large-scale chalk drawing by Keith Haring
- Prints by Käthe Kollwitz and other twentieth-century artists
- A nineteenth-century traveler's guide booklet with attached map
- Movie posters from the 1950s and 1960s
Library-Archives and Book Conservation
There is no longer external support of the Library and Archive Conservation Education (LACE) classes, workshops, and internships since our Mellon grant has ended.* We do, however, continue to welcome applicants interested in specializing in library and archive conservation.
*We would like to thank the Mellon Foundation for the years of generous funding in support of the shared Library and Archive Conservation Education (LACE) Program.
We will continue to have a Guest Lecturer in Book Conservation to mentor and supervise their treatments.
The LACE curriculum continues to offer three online courses that are open to all interested students at no charge:
- Issues in Conserving Archive Collections
- Identification and Preservation of Machine-Readable Media
- Preservation Management (including modules on digitization and surveying collections)
Two additional in-person classes are offered every other year and are open to students of all programs**:
- Manufacture and Conservation of Parchment is held for one week in January in Buffalo,
- Historical Book Structures Practicum is held for one month in the summer at NYU.
**These are no longer required courses and the potential costs and course fees will be determined when offered.
Past library and archive conservation internships:
- The Library of Congress
- Columbia University Library
- National Archives & Records Administration
- Weissman Preservation Center at Harvard Libraries
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Boston Athenaeum
- New York Universities Library
- University Library Leiden in the Netherlands
- UCLA Library Conservation Center
- New-York Historical Society Library
- Stanford University Libraries
- University of Iowa Libraries
- The Folger Shakespeare Library