| Full name | International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1950 |
| Affiliation | Professional association |
| Office location |
6 Buckingham Street, London, WC2N 6BA, UK Telephone +44 (0)20 7839 5975 |
| Website | http://www.iiconservation.org/ |
The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) is a global membership organisation for conservation professionals; with over two thousand members, in over fifty countries. The IIC seeks to promote the knowledge, methods and working standards needed to protect and preserve historic and artistic works throughout the world.
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IIC is an independent international organisation supported by individual and institutional members. It serves as a forum for communication among those professionals who have responsibility for the preservation of cultural heritage. It advances knowledge, practice and standards for the conservation of historic and artistic works through its publications and conferences. It promotes professional excellence and public awareness through its awards and scholarships.
President - Jerry Podany (J. Paul Getty Museum, USA)
Vice-Presidents:
Sharon Cather (Courtauld Institute of Art, UK)
Gabriela Krist (University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria)
Julian Bickersteth (Australia)
Secretary-General - Jo Kirby Atkinson (UK)
Treasurer - Velson Horie (UK)
Director of Publications - Joyce Townsend (Tate, UK)
Ordinary members of Council:
Hans-Christoph von Imhoff (Switzerland)
Tuulikki Kilpinen (Finland)
Anne Rinuy (Switzerland)
Mikkel Scharff (Denmark)
Naoko Sonoda (Japan)
David Saunders (UK)
Rick Kerschner (US)
Michael von der Goltz (Germany)
David Watkinson (UK)
Valentine Walsh (UK)
Cornelia Weyer (Germany)
IIC's Council attempts to reflect the geographical and professional balance of the world-wide conservation profession. Council Members, including the Secretary-General and Treasurer, give their services voluntarily, as do the Editors of Studies in Conservation and Reviews in Conservation. The Institute has a permanent staff of two.
IIC co-operates closely with other organisations in the field, notably ICCROM and the Committee for Conservation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CC) as well as national and regional conservation groups.
IIC is registered in England and Wales with the UK Charity Commission.[1]
Executive Secretary - Graham Voce
Membership Secretary - Valerie Compton-Taylor
In 1930 the International Museums Office of the League of Nations held a conference in Rome on the examination and conservation of works of art. Following this meeting, the Museums Office issued a series of publications on the subject. In 1932 a technical journal of conservation studies, Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts,[2] was founded by the Fogg Museum, Harvard University, under the Managing Editorship of George Stout. It continued publication until 1942.
The repatriation of art treasures after World War II brought together experts from Europe and the United States. They proposed the revival of Technical Studies and the formation of an international body of conservators to continue the interchange of information on the care and conservation of works of art. Between 1946 and 1948 a series of meetings was held to discuss these proposals. Foremost among those involved in the meetings were George Stout, W.G. Constable (Boston), Ian Rawlins (London) and Paul Coremans (Brussels).
In December 1948 at a meeting of the ICOM Commission on the Care of Paintings in London, it was announced that a new international institute for conservation was about to be incorporated with offices in London and that its interests would be the scientific and technical study of the subject.[3]
On April 27, 1950, the International Institute for the Conservation of Museum Objects (it acquired its present title in 1959) was incorporated as a limited company in the United Kingdom.[4] Its aims were "to improve the state of knowledge and standards of practice and to provide a common meeting ground and publishing body for all who are interested in and professionally skilled in the conservation of museum objects”.[5] The Institute was to be concerned with:
- The status of conservators, by forming a professional self-electing body
- Publications: abstracts of the technical literature, and original work with a scientific bias - the end of the "secrets of the Old Masters"
- Training, with the aim of raising standards.
The office was established with the help of a grant from the Nuffield Foundation. London was chosen as the "midpoint" between the USA and continental Europe. Office space was provided free by the Trustees of the National Gallery (London). The Institute moved to its own independent offices in 1968.
The membership was to consist of Fellows who were to be persons highly qualified in (or in positions of great authority in) conservation and Associates who were to be "persons anxious to promote the objects of the Institute”. Later a category of Institutional Members was introduced.
When the IIC was founded in 1950, the Founder Fellows were George Stout, Rutherford J. Gettens, Richard Buck, W.G. Constable, Murray Pease, Ian Rawlins, Harold Plenderleith, Sir Wallace Akers (chairman of ICI), Helmut Ruhemann, and Paul Coremans. Others who joined in that first year included Arthur van Schendel, René Sneyers, and Sheldon and Caroline Keck. George Stout became the IIC's first President, with Harold Plenderleith its Treasurer and Ian Rawlins its Secretary.[6]
The IIC membership grew quickly. In October 1952 there were 62 members (38 of them Fellows) with 64 candidates for Associate membership in process of election; by March 1952, there were 167 members (50 of them Fellows).[7]
IIC membership is open to everyone with an interest in conserving the world's heritage: to conservators and restorers, to conservation scientists, architects, educators and students, and to collection managers, curators, art historians and other cultural heritage professionals.
IIC Fellows are senior members of the profession who are elected by the existing body of Fellows. Fellowship of IIC is open to all members who are actively engaged in the profession of conservation. They may be: practising conservators and restorers, scientists and technologists working in the field of conservation, conservation educators, other persons, whether technical, curatorial or administrative, who have made an important contribution to the conservation profession.
Fellows must be able to demonstrate commitment to the profession and to show that they keep up-to-date with relevant developments. Indicators include publications, voluntary service to conservation organisations, participation in conferences and training events, membership of other relevant professional bodies, and accreditation by a national organisation.[8]
In May 1952, the first issue of the IIC Newsletter appeared; this later became the IIC Bulletin. this in turn was superseded in 2007 by News in Conservation. In October 1952, Studies in Conservation began publication. IIC Abstracts, an international journal of abstracts of the technical literature and the forerunner of Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts, was first published in 1955. With changing editorship, it ran for five volumes ending with Vol.5, no.4 (Autumn 1965). In 2000, the first volume of the annual Reviews in Conservation was published.
Studies in Conservation[9] is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal for the conservation of historic and artistic works. Studies in Conservation publishes original work on a range of subjects including, but not limited to, advances in conservation practice, novel methods of treatment, preventive conservation, issues of collection care, conservation history and ethics, examination methods for works of art, new research in the analysis of artistic materials or mechanisms of deterioration, and conservation issues in display and storage.
Published annually until 2010, Reviews in Conservation [10] has now been incorporated into Studies in Conservation..
News in Conservation[11] is published six times a year. News in Conservation aims to provide a place where IIC members can share opinions, news, and information. News in Conservation contains news from the IIC Council and regional groups, as well as job vacancies, conference listings and notices along with a mixture of news stories, features, interviews and other articles relating to all aspects of conservation in every issue. An electronic version of the newspaper appears on the website after publication, and is freely downloadable by members.
In 1961, with the help of a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation, the IIC held its first international conference. That meeting, in Rome, was attended by 150 people, and the papers were published by Butterworths under the title Recent Advances in Conservation.[12] Subsequently, conferences have been held at two- or three-year intervals with published preprints on a topic of current interest. Past conferences are:
· Recent Advances in Conservation (Rome 1961)
· Textile Conservation (Delft 1964)
· Museum Climatology (London 1967)
· Stone and Wooden Objects (New York 1970)
· Paintings and the Graphic Arts (Lisbon 1972)
· Archaeology and the Applied Arts (Stockholm 1975)
· Wood in Painting and the Decorative Arts (Oxford 1978)
· Conservation Within Historic Buildings (Vienna 1980)
· Science and Technology (Washington 1982)
· Adhesives and Consolidants (Paris 1984)
· Cleaning, Retouching and Coatings (Brussels 1990)
· Stone and Wall Paintings (Bologna 1986)
· Far Eastern Art (Kyoto 1988)
· Iberian and Latin American Cultural Heritage (Madrid 1992) · Preventive Conservation (Ottawa 1994)
· Archaeological Conservation and its Consequences (Copenhagen 1996)
· Painting Techniques: History, Materials and Studio Practice (Dublin 1998)
· Tradition and Innovation: Advances in Conservation (Melbourne 2000)
· Works of Art on Paper. Books, Documents and Photographs. Techniques and Conservation (Baltimore 2002)
· Modern Art: New Museums (Bilbao 2004)
· The Object in Context: Crossing Conservation Boundaries (Munich 2006)
· Conservation and Access (London 2008)
· Conservation and the Eastern Mediterranean (Istanbul 2010)
The 2012 conference will be held in Vienna.
IIC's Regional Groups began in 1958. Regional Groups are independent associations affiliated or associated with IIC. A Regional Group is required to adhere to the aims and objectives of the IIC as expressed in the Memorandum of Association. Its by-laws must be approved by the IIC Council, and its officers should be members of IIC. The first Regional Groups formed were the IIC-United Kingdom Group (now Icon, the Institute of Conservation) and the IIC-American Group (now the American Institute for Conservation). There are currently Regional Groups in Scandinavia, Austria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, and Spain. They include:
IIC Nordic Group/Nordiska Konservatorförbund(NKF)
IIC Austrian Group/Österreichische Sektion IIC
IIC French Group/Section Française de l'IIC (SFIIC) Secretariat: 29 rue de Paris, 77420 Champs sur Marne, France sfiic@lrmh.fr
IIC Japan Contact: Chie Sano, National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo, 13-43 Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-8713, Japan
IIC Hellenic Group Secretariat: PO Box 27031, 117 02 Athens, Greece
IIC Spanish Group/Grupo Español del IIC (GEIIC) Contact: Secretariat: IPHE, C/ Greco 4, 28040 Madrid, Spain administracion@ge-iic.org
IIC Italian Group/Gruppo Italiano dell'IIC (IGIIC) Secretariat: Villa Rey, Strada Val Martino Superiore 27, 10132 Torino, Italy info@igiic.org
IIC Honorary Fellowship was established to recognise outstanding contributions to heritage conservation. The first Honorary Fellowship was awarded to Edward W. Forbes in 1958. Since that date the award has been made to the following individuals:
F. I. G. Rawlins*
George Stout*
W. G. Constable*
Harold Plenderleith*
A.M. Bell*
Arthur van Schendel*
Sir Norman Reid*
Sheldon Keck*
Garry Thomson*
Stephen Rees Jones*
Kazuo Yamasaki
H.W.M. Hodges*
Hedy d'Ancona
Caroline Keck*
Paolo Mora*
Laura Mora
Robert L. Feller
Agnes Ballestrem*
A.E. Werner*
O.P. Agrawal
Kenzo Toishi
Karen Finch
Marian Kemp Weidner
Perry Smith
Hermann Kühn
Manfred Koller
J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer
Sue Sack
Giorgio Toracca*
The Keck Award, endowed by Sheldon and Caroline Keck, is presented every two years at the IIC Congress to the individual or group who has, in the opinion of the Council, contributed most towards promoting public understanding and appreciation of the accomplishments of the conservation profession.
Past winners of the Keck Award:[13]
· 2010 - the 'Painting Techniques of Impressionism and Postimpressionism' project organised by the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and Fondation Corboud in collaboration with the Cologne Institute for Conservation Science at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences
· 2008 - The Lunder Conservation Centre Visible conservation labs at the Smithsonian American Art Museum & National Portrait Gallery
· 2006 - The Mariners' Museum for the USS Monitor conservation project
· 2004 - Andreina Nardi for the 'Aperto per Restauro' project
· 2002 - No award was made
· 2000 - SOS! Save Outdoor Sculpture! programme
· 1998 - The Conservation Centre at National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside in Liverpool
· 1996 - Gaël de Guichen for 'Media Save Art', and the Williamstown Art Conservation Center for 'Altered States'
· 1994 - Simon Cane for the 'Stop the Rot' exhibition at the York Castle Museum
The Forbes Prize Lecture has been delivered at every IIC Congress since the Rome Congress in 1961. It is delivered by a person who has made outstanding contributions to the field of conservation; the first Forbes Prize lecture was given by Harold Plenderleith.
Past Forbes Prize Lecturers:[14]
The HP Image Permanence Award, sponsored by the Hewlett-Packard Company and given with participation of IIC, recognises outstanding contributions that advance the longevity of photographic and fine art images created via modern digital methods.
Past winners are:[16]
2008-Rita Hofmann, Research and Development Director for the Ilford Imaging Group since 2000
2007-James M. Reilly, founder and director of the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
The Gabo Trust-IIC Travelling Scholarship is a monetary award that allows individuals to travel around the world with the aim of carrying out research on the conservation of sculpture and meeting and seeing the work of other conservators and learning about their approaches, ethics, materials and methods.
The Brommelle Memorial Fund was established in 1990 in memory of Norman Brommelle, who was Secretary-General of IIC between 1958 and 1988. The fund is used to provide assistance for students of conservation who wish to attend the Institute's international Congresses.
IIC supports conservation institutions and individual conservators who cannot afford the cost of membership through its Opportunities Fund. The fund is maintained through the generous contributions of our members, and allows successful applicants to receive up to three years' membership of IIC without charge.