Appel à communication : History and conservation of picture frames (Toronto, 2-3 May 24)

History and conservation of picture frames
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada, May 2–03, 2024
Deadline: Dec 15, 2023

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) invites submissions from conservators, curators, graduate students, and independent researchers for a two-day conference on the history and conservation of picture frames. The conference will take place at the AGO on Thursday, May 2, and Friday, May 3, 2024.

This conference is co-organized by the museum’s curatorial and conservation departments to promote inter- and multi-disciplinary dialogue. The AGO is home to an important collection of historic frames, and a project is currently underway at AGO to catalogue and conserve this collection to make the collection more accessible for study and use. In light of this project, the symposium aims to present current research that contextualizes frames in their many incarnations, including research on frame makers, framing traditions, frames’ afterlives, frame collections, pairings of frames to paintings, artists’ frames, the commercial history of framing, and related topics.

Keynote lectures will be delivered by Lynn Roberts, acclaimed frame historian and publisher of The Frame Blog, and Hubert Baija, recently-retired longtime conservator of frames at the Rijksmuseum.

Applicants are requested to send a current CV and a 300-word abstract outlining the topic of a 20- minute paper to Julia.campbell-such@ago.ca by 15 December 2023.

Conference registration, accommodation in Toronto and some meals will be covered for speakers. Further funding is available for travel for students and unaffiliated researchers. Special funding for one early-career scholar has been generously provided by the Decorative Arts Trust. Please indicate in your email with CV and abstract if you would like to apply for this funding.