News from the Paper Lab at the Cleveland Museum of Art

As anticipated, the museum’s collection of Indian miniatures has been the focus of much activity in the paper lab. Last fall Moyna Stanton, Paper Conservator, and Kimi Taira, Third-Year Graduate Intern from the University of Delaware, audited a CASE University graduate art history class, Indian Mughal Painting, taught by, Dr. Sonya Quintanilla, the George P. Bickford Curator for Indian and Southeast Asian Art. Moyna and Kimi continue to prepare many manuscripts and album leaves for rotation that have not been on display for years – including palm leaf manuscript folios -- and generally keeping up with stabilization intervention for the many newly acquired leaves.Another rotating collection, the western illuminated manuscripts – bound volumes and individual leaves -- has also required a lot of attention these past several months. Amy Crist, Associate Conservator of Book and Paper, has kept things moving along nicely with the requirements for this collection and is starting to tackle conservation issues with bound items held by the museum’s photo collection.Joan Neubecker, Conservation Technician for Photographs and Imaging Specialist, continues to prepare works for an ambitious photography exhibition schedule. The recent show called Constructed Identities was on view until the end of April, and Joan will assist with two borrowed shows that open later in the spring: My Dakota: Photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb, and TR Ericsson: Crackle and Drag. In addition to her work with the photography collection, Joan has been busy in the photography studio assisting the conservators and interns with their imaging and documentation needs.As promised in the last MRCG newsletter, Themes and Variations is currently on view in the Prints and Drawings Galleries, and we've installed Fresh Prints: the Nineties to Now, an assemblage of beautiful, bold, and technically innovative contemporary prints made during the last 25 years. This show includes many irregular and oversize works. After completing contemporary prints, Stephen Fixx, Conservation Technician for Works of Art on Paper, was immediately immersed in preparations for another large print show: Monotypes: Painterly Prints, also featuring many oversize works that have never before been displayed or even matted. This show will open at the end of May. Stephen continues to supervise our Pre-program intern, Margalit Schinlder, who has been indispensable to mounting all of these paper shows.Finally, we are very pleased to announce that at the end of the summer the paper lab will welcome Jacinta Johnson as a Third-Year Graduate Intern from the University of Delaware art conservation program.