Portland Art Museum Workshop for Northwest Photography Collection Survey
FAIN: PG-263582-19
Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR 97205-2430)
Samantha Springer (Project Director: May 2018 to present)
A workshop to train museum staff and a graduate
fellow in preservation, conservation, and the collection management needs of
the Portland Art Museum’s 3,180 prints and negatives from its Northwest art
collection. Included are works by
modernist photographer Minor White, photographs documenting Native Americans from
the Pacific Northwest by Edward Curtis, and portraits by Imogen Cunningham of
important 20th-century artists including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward
Weston, and Morris Graves.
The Portland Art Museum (PAM) seeks $7,000 to complete a condition survey of the Museum’s photograph collection of 3,000 works in the Museum’s distinguished Northwest art collection. Due to the fact that no photograph conservator specialist currently works in the state of Oregon, the Museum will bring a specialist onsite to assist with process identification and train permanent full-time staff, allowing PAM staff to carry out this work on a sustainable, long-term basis. Based on areas of PAM staff knowledge, workshop topics will focus on photographic process identification; condition survey practices specific to photograph examination; and best practices for documentation, focusing on UV photography. The Museum seeks $1,000 as part of this request to support the attendance of an advanced student or recent graduate Fellow at the workshop. PAM will contribute $4,495 to pay the Fellow following the workshop for an 8 week fellowship to help carry out a survey of the photograph collection.