Participants in an experts meeting at the Dallas Museum of Art examine the back of a painting while learning about tear mending techniques in preparation for the conservation of María Luis Pacheco’s Stoic Figure (1959)

Photo: Dallas Museum of Art

Conserving Canvas is an international grant initiative begun in 2018 to ensure that critical conservation skills needed to care for paintings on canvas do not disappear. Below is a list of grants awarded:

Amigos del Museo Histórico de Rosario
Amigos del Museo Histórico de Rosario is a non-profit civil association created in 1950 to advance the mission of Museo Marc, known for its collection of Spanish colonial art. A Getty grant is funding the conservation of two Spanish colonial paintings at Museo Marc and a related tear mending workshop to train 10 paintings conservators from state museums in central Argentina. Spanish colonial paintings were often painted on burlap and thus present significant structural conservation challenges that could benefit from tear mending, a method involving the painstaking weaving of individual threads to repair gashes. However, few conservators in Argentina have had opportunities for gaining tear-mending experience, making the program a rare opportunity to develop these important hand skills. An expert's meeting will bring together leading conservators from Latin America and the United States with specialists in colonial art to investigate the context, material, and conservation of Spanish colonial paintings. Following the meeting, experts will train participants in tear mending using the two 18th-century paintings from Museo Marc. After the workshop, the museum will continue to repair these canvases for their eventual permanent display while participants will return to their home institutions to apply tear mending to paintings there, for which they will receive video mentoring on their progress.
Grant awarded: $170,000 (2022)

Asociación de Amigos del Museo de América
The Museo de América provided training through the treatment of Miguel Cabrera's La Vida de la Virgen (c. 1751) series. Each depicting a scene from the life of the Virgin Mary, the nine paintings in the series represented varying levels of conservation: some had never been touched but remained in good condition, some were untreated but had structural damage, while others had received canvas lining treatments as part of restoration efforts. Because of these diverse histories, the project offered an opportunity for Spanish and Latin American paintings conservators who work with Spanish colonial collections to compare structural issues and solutions across the works. Participants traveled to the Museo de América in Madrid for training residencies during which they worked on conservation assessments and treatments, received specialized training in structural interventions of canvas supports, and expanded their professional networks. Additionally, the museum, in partnership with the Ministerio de Cultura in Peru, organized a five-day workshop at the Universidad Nacional Diego Quispe Tito de Cusco to introduce conservators from Central and South America to the project and expand their knowledge of traditional and alternative paste-glue linings.
Grant awarded: €160,000 (2019)

Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France
The Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France (C2MRF)—a national center for the preservation and study of the cultural heritage in French museums—led two workshops for mid-career conservators on French paste lining techniques. Originating in the 1700s, paste lining involves attaching a secondary canvas to a primary canvas with an organic paste composed of animal glue, flour, and additives, such as ox gall and vinegar. Although conservators turned away from paste lining in the 1980s in favor of more minimally invasive approaches, recent investigations suggest that it is both effective and safe. The workshops (one for Francophone and one for Anglophone participants), held at C2RMF's conservation studios at the Château de Versailles, trained conservators in the theoretical and practical knowledge of paste lining. Participants prepared paste recipes and practiced paste application on mock-ups. Once the participants returned to their home institutions, C2RMF conservators performed site-visits and consulted on structural conservation issues related to paste-lined paintings in the collections.
Grant awarded: €100,900 (2019)

Centro Conservazione e Restauro "La Venaria Reale"
Italy's Center for Conservation and Restoration in La Venaria Reale, Turin, used Getty support to conserve Giulio Cesare Procaccini's Virgin with Child, Saints, and Angels (1615-20). The painting, which comes from the collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, is a double-sided banner once used for religious ceremonies that, due to extensive damage, hadn't been on display since 1850. Prior to the project, the painting had approximately 170 tears in its canvas. The highly challenging structural treatment served as a training ground for a group of conservators who practiced methods such as de-lining, filling, the application of canvas inserts, tear mending, and stretching. The project provided participants and the broader conservation field information on how older and more recent conservation treatments perform and degrade over time. The project concluded with an online publication and didactic videos highlighting technical aspects of the conservation.
Grant awarded: €92,000 (2020)

Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums
François Boucher's Vertumnus and Pomona (1757) is one of the largest paintings in the European collection of the Legion of Honor, which together with the de Young Museum makes up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. For many years, the painting served as the focal point of a large gallery devoted to 18th-century French and Italian art; however, upon the gallery's reinstallation in 2013, the painting was removed from display. The work had become increasingly compromised due to canvas distortions, a failing lining, yellowed surface varnish, and discolored retouching. A Getty grant-funded conservation treatment led by senior conservators addressed these issues and at the same time trained a group of visiting museum conservators in the development of hands-on skills for canvas repair. A related technical study addressed long-standing questions about the painting's early history and provenance.
Grant awarded: $129,000 (2018)

The Courtauld Institute
A Getty grant supported a conservation training and research project related to paintings by English landscape artist William Westall (1781-1850) in the collections of the Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG). Mid-career conservators from across the UK participated in the structural conservation of two paintings by Westall, whose use of heat and solvent-sensitive paint poses instructive treatment challenges. Over four masterclasses, participants became familiar with lining on a vacuum hot table and discussed important topics related to structural canvas treatments, such as the identification of lining damages and evaluating the longevity of lining treatments. The research component focused on the 1974 Greenwich Lining Conference hosted by RMG, a pivotal moment in the field that prompted a significant shift in the practice of lining and sparked the use of new techniques. Materials at the RMG and the Courtauld and oral histories related to the 1974 conference and RMG's substantial body of post-conference treatments were analyzed and shared both online and at the 2019 Conserving Canvas conference at Yale University.
Grant awarded: £66,300 (2019)

Dallas Museum of Art
A grant to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) provided training in tear mending through the conservation treatment of María Luisa Pacheco's Stoic Figure (1959). Tear mending is an advanced conservation technique that involves the painstaking weaving of individual threads of the canvas to repair gashes. Pacheco's painting had a significant tear in the canvas when it entered the DMA's collection 60 years ago and has thus remained in storage. The treatment project allowed the museum to put the painting on public view for the first time. Led by the DMA's paintings conservation department and an experienced advisory team, the treatment included two training residencies for mid-career conservators and a two-day regional workshop for Texas-based conservators.
Grant awarded: $81,000 (2019)

Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering
The Royal Danish Academy of Art, in collaboration with the Universitat Politécnica de València, will host a 10-day advanced workshop on the mechanical behavior of the materials that make up canvas paintings and how that relates to their conservation. A dozen participants will include museum conservators and conservation educators, the latter of which will ensure knowledge transfer to the next generation of conservation students and professionals. The organizers will solicit participation from Spanish-speaking countries, including Latin America, where conservators have historically had fewer training and networking opportunities. A blend of theoretical lessons, practical exercises, and discussion will help participants gain foundational knowledge about the mechanical, chemical, and physical properties of painting materials, and how they impact ageing pattern and conservation approaches.
Grant awarded: €170,000 (2022)

Fundación Arte y Solidaridad
Fundación Arte y Solidaridad is a non-profit foundation that supports the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA). Located in Santiago, Chile, MSSA holds one of the most important modern and contemporary art collections in Latin America. A Getty grant supported training and treatment related to Frank Stella's Isfahan III (1968)—a large, irregularly shaped painting (from the artist's "Protractor Series") donated by Stella to the museum in 1972. During Chile's military coup d'état in 1973, the painting was hidden, its complex stretcher disassembled and the canvas folded several times over. It was eventually returned to a replacement stretcher, which has now warped and is unable to provide the proper tension needed for such an intricately shaped canvas. MSSA conservators and other professionals from South America attended a workshop on the history and techniques of stretching canvases, and learned a technique for minimal spring-loaded tension. International experts consulted on structural treatment options for utilizing the low spring-tension technique, with treatment-based training sessions culminating in the structural stabilization of Isfahan III. At the project's conclusion, team members traveled to New York to interview Stella about the work's history.
Grant awarded: $210,000 (2019)

Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica
The Throne Room of the Palazzo Barberini (one of two buildings comprising the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica in Rome) possesses three imposing paintings that needed urgent conservation: an oil-and-canvas work by Carlo Viva that copies a celebrated Vatican fresco and two monumental works, The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis and Bacchus and Ariadne, by Guiseppe Belloni. With Getty support, a project team relined the paintings using non-toxic water-based adhesives, providing an opportunity for nine mid-career conservators to gain firsthand experience in safely applying this technique. The project began with an expert’s meeting to discuss various conservation methodologies and the latest scientific advances. Then the participants broke into smaller teams to learn about glue-paste removal and consolidation, work on mock-ups, and brainstorm solutions to various challenges presented by the works before conserving the paintings themselves. Gallerie Nazionali created an open conservation studio so visitors could directly observe the technical process needed to care for these works.
Grant awarded: €225,000 (2022)

Henry E. Huntington Library & Art Gallery
Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy is among the most famous paintings in the Huntington's collection, having been on display for nearly 100 years without interruption. Despite the best of care, conservation treatment became necessary to address lifting and flaking paint, the separation of the canvas from its support lining, and the accrual of layers of varnish on the painting's surface. A Getty grant allowed the Huntington to bring together highly respected conservation experts of 18th-century British canvas paintings in order to determine a treatment plan for re-lining the painting—a process that involved adding a new secondary canvas support to the original material. A cohort of conservators gained valuable experience by participating in the decision-making process and structural intervention of this highly significant and celebrated canvas painting. During the year-long conservation treatment, The Blue Boy is remained mostly on public view in order to educate audiences about the field of preservation.
Grant awarded: $150,000 (2018)

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc.
Painted by the Bristol-born artist William Williams in 1766, the portraits of William Hall, Deborah Hall, and David Hall (the children of David Hall Sr., printing partner to Benjamin Franklin) are considered among the most finest portraits made in North America during the Colonial Era. A Getty grant supported training and treatment related to the conservation of these works, all of which were deteriorating due to failing wax-lining. The Brooklyn Museum, which houses Deborah Hall, and Winterthur, which holds the brothers' portraits, are coordinating the structural treatments and shareed learnings during the conservation process. Following a week-long seminar on the aesthetic impact of wax-resin lining, early-career conservators from each institution received training in wax-resin lining removal and regeneration (the use of low heat to reactivate the remains of previous lining adhesives), spending one month at the other's museum. By the end of the project, the conservators gained experience in a variety of techniques including consolidation, lining reversal, hot vacuum table operation, and re-stretching. The museums planned public lectures, conference presentations, and peer reviewed publications to disseminate results.
Grant awarded: $132,000 (2019)

John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation
Emperor Justinian (1886), an extraordinarily large oil-on-canvas painting (13 x 22 ft.), is considered to be one of French Orientalist painter Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant's most important works. Acquired in 1929, the painting was subsequently rolled-up due to its embrittled canvas, tears and gashes, and failing patch repairs. A Getty-funded project (see video) trained conservators from The Ringling, Artcare Miami (where the conservation treatment took place), and other institutions (all of which have Constant paintings in their collections) in a range of structural treatment procedures applicable to large paintings on canvas. They practiced the safe unrolling of the canvas, removal of the facing tissue, tear repair, and the re-weaving of several holes, all of which are critical skills. They assessed whether lining was needed and decided on the most appropriate conservation method. Emperor Justinian is now prominently displayed in The Ringling's main gallery as part of an ambitious reinstallation of the museum's painting galleries. Various workshops, lectures, and blog posts disseminated results.
Grant awarded: $176,800 (2019)

Menil Foundation, Inc.
As part of this grant project, mid-career conservators from the Menil, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and four other institutions received training in the reversal of wax-resin lining treatments. Once popular for maintaining a painting's structural integrity, wax-resin linings are now considered damaging, especially for modern art; among other things, they can cause discoloration of paint surfaces and leave burn marks. The conservators performed wax-resin lining reversals on two works from the Menil Collection: Mark Rothko's The Green Stripe (1955), which has been off-view for nearly 20 years, and Georges Braque's Large Interior with Palette (1942), which suffered from an intrusive wax-lining in 1964. A third 20th-century painting from the MFAH received treatment. The Menil partnered with the MFAH on the project because of their mutual strength in modern and contemporary art and the importance of training conservators on the adverse effects of wax-resin lining on modern paintings.
Grant awarded: $114,800 (2019)

Museum of Fine Arts Houston
A grant to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) enabled experts to use the conservation treatment of a 12-foot canvas painting by Franz Kline as a training opportunity for mid-career conservators. The painting, Orange and Black Wall (1959), is one of Kline's earliest experiments with adding color to his signature black and white compositions. The treatment project addressed structural problems that caused the paint to detach from the canvas and flake off. Organizers from MFAH welcomed US-based and international conservators to observe and participate in the decision-making processes involved in stabilizing the painting for the future.
Grant awarded: $132,000 (2019)

The National Gallery
With Getty support, the National Gallery, London undertook a major conservation treatment of one of the most prominent canvas paintings in its collection, Anthony van Dyck's Equestrian Portrait of Charles I (1637-8). Since its acquisition in 1885, the monumental work—which depicts the king as the divinely chosen ruler of Great Britain—had rarely been off view. While the painting was in relatively good condition, the original canvas was too weak to hold the painting up by itself. Old tears were lifting at the edges, and a network of surface cracks (which indicate the painting had been rolled in the past) were disrupting the image. Additionally, the picture surface was somewhat rippled in certain areas due to earlier treatments. Led by National Gallery conservators, a complex conservation intervention focused on the removal and replacement of the current lining. Visiting mid-career museum conservators received training in the techniques and complex logistics of re-lining a large and fragile painting, an undertaking in which the National Gallery's conservation department has particular expertise. A culminating workshop shared the project results with a larger group of 20-30 specialists in the field.
Grant awarded: £70,800 (2018)

National Gallery of Ireland
A Getty grant supported training and structural treatments related to two collages by Juan Gris and one painting by Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland. While the collages are now catalogued as two separate works, they were once joined together: Gris had started then abandoned Carafe, Cups and Glasses before using the work's reverse as a painting support for A Guitar, Glasses and a Bottle. In the 1960s, conservators separated the two paintings and relined them individually, potentially causing further harm to the already damaged canvases. In contrast, Guercino's Saint Joseph with the Christ Child (c.1637) was lined with traditional paste glue lining. But because of its oval shape and the tension-induced buckling of the canvas, it needed to be relined and supported by a new, custom-designed stretcher. Intensive year-long fellowships allowed three conservators to be trained in all aspects of the conservation treatment, ranging from testing potential structural solutions with mock-ups to the final conservation of the paintings. Additionally, the National Gallery hosted a workshop for conservators using the works by Gris and Guercino as case studies.
Grant awarded: €183,000 (2019)

New York University
Since the 1980s, Beva 371 has been the adhesive of choice for conservators working to treat the linings of canvas paintings. In 2010, however, a key ingredient of Beva 371 became commercially unavailable, jeopardizing the continued availability of the synthetic lining adhesive and precipitating the need for an alternative. With Getty grant support, NYU's Conservation Center addressed this critical problem by bringing together a team of distinguished international conservators, conservation scientists, and polymer scientists/ engineers to develop a non-proprietary formula for a lining adhesive that mirrors the efficacy and stability of the original Beva 371. The team supervised two Getty-funded Fellows: a Getty Conservation Fellow at NYU's Conservation Center and a Getty Postdoctoral Science Fellow in polymer science at the University of Akron. The project included two workshops to share the research results with the conservation community and to demonstrate the effective use of the Beva 371 replacement in real-world scenarios. Both Fellows published their findings in peer-reviewed journals and gave seminars on their research progress.
Grant awarded: $890,000 (2021)

President and Fellows of Harvard College
Starting in the late 1940s, artists such as Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler began painting on cotton duck canvases as an economical alternative to traditional linen. Originally used for sails, tents, and workwear, cotton duck is tightly woven and produced on extra-large width looms, allowing for the creation of massive artworks that expand paintings' physical boundaries. Contemporary paintings conservators, however, have struggled with how best to conserve these works. With Getty support, Harvard Art Museums, in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, will host a 10-day workshop on the structural care of cotton duck canvas. Participants will study works on cotton duck to gain understanding of their care, storage, and display, then move into hands-on instruction in treatment methods. At Harvard, the group will use Barnett Newman’s Noon-Light (a painting gifted to the university as a study object) as a case study for the risks and challenges of treating paintings on cotton duck.
Grant awarded: $245,000 (2022)

Statens Historiska Museer
Sweden's National Historical Museums organized a two-week collections-based seminar in 2019 for conservators and curators to study canvas paintings at Skokloster Castle in Sweden. The seminar provided a hands-on introduction to the mechanical behavior of paintings on cloth supports, the deterioration of materials such as canvas and adhesives, and the aesthetic impact of different canvas conservation treatment methods. A workshop on tear mending offered conservators the chance to learn a newer, less invasive repair technique, while case studies involving three 17th-century paintings from the collection, including Jacob Jordaens's The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt, promoted problem-solving skills. The Skokloster collection was especially well-suited for training exercises given its lack of climate control over the centuries; trainees witnessed firsthand the effects of uncontrolled climate conditions on the collection's lined and unlined paintings and discuss possible conservation treatments.
Grant awarded: 1,130,000 kr (2018)

Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg
A Getty grant to Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg (SRAL) in 2018 supported an advanced conservation workshop on mist lining, a minimally invasive technique developed to stabilize paintings on canvas. Mist lining was developed in the 1980s and involves the application of minimal amounts of adhesive, heat, and pressure to join a painting's back to a new canvas. Since mist lining is still a relatively new technique and not yet part of many conservators' "toolkits," the advanced workshop was timely for the field. Building on the success of this workshop and increased interest in the non-invasive method following the 2019 Conserving Canvas Symposium, SRAL received a second grant for an online workshop that enabled participants to receive mist lining training and mock-up materials at home during the global pandemic. This pilot workshop held the potential to create a new model for online conservation instruction allowing for exploration, research, and development of hand-skills in a virtual environment. A third grant awarded in 2022 is supporting a hybrid mist-lining workshop combining learnings from the previous two workshops. SRAL will lead five online sessions and partner with a regional host outside of Western Europe and North America for a two-week in-person training workshop where conservators will learn the basics of mist lining on prefabricated mock-ups and the properties and preparation of adhesives and solvents.
Grant awarded: €234,000 (2018), €83,000 (2021), and €87,500 (2022)

Stichting RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis
A key goal of the Conserving Canvas initiative is to ensure that the international conservation community has ready access to knowledge about the history, care, and treatment of canvas paintings. With Getty support, the RKD researched and planned how a freely accessible, online platform could collect and share this information. This comprehensive and user-friendly database would be populated with multi-lingual historical and contemporary primary and secondary sources. To ensure any platform met the needs of the field, the RKD worked with an international Steering Committee that provided general oversight and helped define the platform's goals, parameters, and infrastructure requirements. RKD also collaborated with a Scientific Advisory Board tasked with recommending scope and content. Both committees were composed of international art historians, conservators, and technologists.
Grant awarded: €50,000 (2021)

Technische Hochschule Köln
The Cologne Institute for Conservation Sciences at Technische Hochschule Köln hosted a pilot online workshop to teach the minimally invasive tear mending method. Building on the success of previous in-person tear mending courses, including a 2019 workshop at Getty, workshop organizers Petra Demuth and Hannah Flock aimed to establish a new model for conservation education by removing the barrier of international travel to receiving specialized training. The workshop was designed for midcareer museum conservators in the Mediterranean region and offered pre-recorded videos and lectures, live discussions, and hands-on exercises. As part of developing their hand skills, participants practiced using instruments for tear closure and single thread bonding, and learned the practices of stretching, tensioning, and adding protective backing systems.
Grant awarded: €193,000 (2021)

Universidad Nacional de General San Martín
TAREA - Instituto de Investigaciones sobre el Patrimonio Cultural is part of the Universidad Nacional de General San Martín and the leading conservation science center in Argentina. Getty grant funds supported training and treatment at TAREA related to the conservation of three paintings from the collection of the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Emilio Pettoruti in Buenos Aires. The paintings—Argentine modernist Lino Enea Spilimbergo's Figura (1935), Argentine painter Francisco Vidal's Muchachas en el baño (1932), and Spanish painter Ricardo Balaca's Colón en el puerto de Palos (1873)—all required complex structural interventions that provided training opportunities for eight conservators from institutions across South America. During the training residencies, participating conservators worked side-by-side with TAREA staff and visiting international experts to complete condition assessments and individually-tailored treatments that deepened their knowledge of how to line paintings and safely reattach lined canvases to new stretchers.
Grant awarded: $173,000 (2020)

Universiteit van Amsterdam
The Department of Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) hosted a 10-day intensive workshop for conservators and curators on the complexities of wax-resin lining, a method originally developed in the Netherlands. The quality and efficacy of wax-resin linings are extremely variable and dependent upon the proportion of wax and resin, the inclusion of additives, and the temperature and amount of mixture used. Once considered a premier method for stabilizing paintings, the practice is now largely abandoned; numerous museum collections around the world, however, still house wax-resin lined paintings that require further conservation treatment. Through hands-on practice and close examination of paintings from museums across the Netherlands, workshop participants developed a tactile understanding of the technique and heighten their discernment of the aesthetic effects of compromised impasto, color-saturated paint, and imprinted secondary canvas weave pattern. The workshop was directed by highly regarded paintings conservators and art historians from the university and the Rijksmuseum, and served as a pilot for a planned biennial series of workshops.
Grant awarded: €179,000 (2019)

University of Glasgow
A Getty grant brought pairs of conservators-curators to the College of Arts and The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow for a project featuring training workshops related to the conservation of five canvas paintings from the Hunterian and the National Galleries of Scotland, including Sir Joshua Reynolds's Lady Maynard (c.1759-60). The workshops, which focused on the interdisciplinary involvement of both curators and conservators, were conceived around the principle that canvas conservation is part of a holistic process involving condition, aesthetics, interpretation, and presentation. Participants researched the evolution of lining materials and techniques, and reviewed how past structural treatments affect a painting's appearance. They also examined the visual presentation of paintings with different approaches to treatments, referencing collections at The Hunterian, National Galleries of Scotland, Glasgow Museums, and Yale University. Afterwards, participants completed individual month-long residencies in Scotland to treat the five selected paintings.
Grant awarded: £115,000 (2018)

Yale University
The Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage at Yale University organized and hosted the Conserving Canvas Symposium, an international convening on the conservation of canvas paintings held October 14-17, 2019. This was the first major international gathering on the subject since 1974, allowing specialists to look back at over 45 years of practice and take stock of the current state of the field. The symposium addressed historical approaches to the structural treatment of canvas paintings; contemporary methods, materials, and research; and the challenges facing the structural conservation of modern and contemporary works. With today's professionals embracing minimal-intervention techniques and maintaining differing opinions on the efficacy of more invasive approaches, the symposium provided a necessary forum for specialists to reevaluate historical conservation protocols and consider how past and current treatment approaches set the course for the long-term stability of paintings on canvas, whether by old masters or modern artists.
Grant awarded: $212,000 (2018)

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