NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AWARDS GRANT TO WILLIAMSTOWN ART CONSERVATION CENTER
TO PROVIDE STATE-OF-THE-ART ANALYTICAL SERVICES NATIONALLY

The National Park Service and the National Center for Preservation
Technology and Training (NCPTT) have awarded the Williamstown Art
Conservation Center $49,942 to provide state-of-the-art analytical
services to the national preservation and conservation community.  The
project is headed by James Martin, the Center's director of analytical
services and research.  Subsequent phases of the three-year project will
be awarded based upon the availability of appropriated funds.  The
Williamstown Center was the only applicant to receive a grant in the
Analytical Facility Support category.

The Phase I grant will enable the Center to supplement its present array
of analytical techniques with in-situ FT-IR analysis of small objects and
preparation-free analysis of samples using ATR microscopy, digital
microscopy and image analysis, and much more.  These state-of-the-art
techniques will provide conservators, curators, and collectors more
detailed information about objects and samples at reduced cost.  The
hourly rate charged to conservators and non-profit institutions during
Phase I of the project has been reduced to $63 per hour.

As an established provider of analytical services to the conservation and
preservation community, the Center's analytical services department
provides technical information useful to scholars, curators and collectors
seeking to date or authenticate a work of art, and to conservators seeking
a reliable description of an artist's materials and techniques, the
history of an object's alteration, and the composition of materials used
in treatment and exhibition.  Since 1991, the department has undertaken
more than 370 analytical projects for conservation and preservation firms,
regional conservation centers, museums, galleries and auction houses, and
corporate and private collectors in the United States, Caribbean, Canada,
England, the Middle East, and the Far East.  Projects have included the
examination and analysis of architectural finishes, archaeological
objects, works on paper, ethnographic objects, decorative objects,
photographic materials, paintings, sculpture, textiles, wooden artifacts,
and materials used for exhibition, storage, and conservation treatment.

The Williamstown Center's analytical services department was conceived and
is operated by James Martin.  Since 1994, Martin has been director of
analytical services and research as well as an associate conservator of
paintings.  Martin joined the Williamstown Center in 1989 after receiving
his M.S. from the University of Delaware/Winterthur Program in Art
Conservation.  A decade of conservation experience in condition reporting,
treatment, survey, and facility assessments has provided him with a
hands-on knowledge of artistic and historic works, and the ability to
communicate fluently with conservators, curators, and collectors.  Martin
speaks and publishes regularly on the scientific analysis of works of art,
and instructs at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The NCPTT

The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) is a
recent effort by the National Park Service to advance the art and science
of historic preservation.  National need for the NCPTT was identified in a
1988 report to Congress prepared by the Office of Technology Assessment,
and the NCPTT was established by the Historic Preservation Act Amendments
of 1992.  The NCPTT's mission fulfills OTA's recommendations to develop
and distribute skills and technologies that enhance the preservation,
conservation and interpretation of prehistoric and historic resources
throughout the United States.  The NCPTT is the first interdisciplinary
preservation research and development effort -- on a national scale --
that includes historic architecture, archeology, historic landscapes,
materials conservation, and historical documentation and interpretation.

The NCPTT's Analytical Facility Support Program funds the maintenance
and/or operation of facilities that are prepared to provide analytical
services that are not otherwise commonly available on a regional or
national basis to the preservation and conservation community.  The
maximum award per proposal per year is $50,000.

The Williamstown Center

The Williamstown Art Conservation Center was founded in 1977 to address
the conservation and collections care needs of a small consortium of
institutions in the Northeast.  In addition to providing analytical
services worldwide, the Center now provides conservation services to more
than 50 member museums and historical societies in New England, New York,
Pennsylvania and Georgia as well as many nonmember institutions and
individual and corporate collectors. The Center is a nonprofit,
full-service art conservation laboratory equipped to examine and treat
paintings, works on paper, furniture, frames, sculpture, ethnographic and
decorative arts objects, and archaeological and historic artifacts.

For more information

For more information on the Center's analytical services, please contact
James Martin at 413/458-5741 or [log in to unmask]