A Spotlight on Conservation at the National Portrait Gallery

Engaging online talk from the National Portrait Gallery touring their temporary conservation studio where they have moved during the refurbishment of the gallery.

Alex Gent, Sally Higgs and Stuart Ager talked us through the work they had done prior to moving the collection and how they were taking the opportunity to do conservation work while the work isn’t on display.

Each of them talked us through projects they were working on at the moment. Stuart talked us through his research for making a new frame for the self-portrait of the artist Joseph Southall and his wife, shown here, who had worked together to design frames for his pictures.

Alex talked about how they work with contemporary artists whose work has been commissioned to understand their process and any conservation issue which might arise in the future. She took as her example a new portrait of Baroness Doreen Lawrence which I can’t wait to see in the flesh.

Finally Sally talked about pictures she has worked on to get them ready to go on loan to other galleries including the portrait of Floral McDonald by Richard Wilson and a lovely Elizabethan miniature.

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