The Guggenheim Museum’s conservation department has received a $3 million challenge grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support its conservation efforts.
The grant, which the museum will need to match two-to-one (raising an additional $6 million), endows the position of deputy director and chief conservator, held since 2007 by Carol Stringari, and a new position, director of engagement, conservation, and collections.
The newly created position marks a first of its kind in the field of conservation, according to the museum. Together with the rest of the department’s nine conservators, that new director will “further the work of the Guggenheim by supporting initiatives to make the museum’s collection and the role of art conservation more transparent and accessible to the public,” the museum said in a release.
Stringari expressed her gratitude in a phone conversation. “We are so honored and excited about the grant,” she said. “It’s an extraordinary endorsement of the interdisciplinary work we’ve been doing for the past several years and hope to do in the future. Conservation has come a long way in terms of its ability to reach out to the public and let them know what it means to preserve cultural heritage. It’s no longer a field where the work stays in a lab, especially at our institution.”