UNH Museum of Art Collection Stewardship and Preservation

FAIN: PG-280686-21

University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH 03824-2620)
Laura Calhoun (Project Director: January 2021 to May 2022)
Kristina Durocher (Project Director: May 2022 to March 2025)

The purchase of equipment to monitor temperature and relative humidity in exhibition spaces, shelving for paintings, and equipment and materials to reduce and monitor light levels in exhibition and storage areas. This project would address recommendations from a Collections Assessment for Preservation survey undertaken in 2019. The collection of 2,212 objects was established and developed in 1948 to meet the teaching and research needs of the Department of Art and Art History. The collection emphasizes the work of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New Hampshire artists, including a small but culturally significant collection of mid-twentieth-century ceramics by Ed and Mary Scheier, as well as genre and figurative art from the Renaissance to the present day.

To address key issues cited in our Collections Assessment for Preservation Survey undertaken September, 2019, we aim to secure funding to address and implement the report’s near-term recommendations and to fulfill our strategic goal for improving collections care, improving environmental conditions, improving storage conditions, and to prepare for accreditation. The NEH Preservation Assistance Grant would allow for the museum to purchase materials needed to measure and monitor temperature and relative humidity data, acquire furniture and materials to re-house objects and improve storage, to reduce and monitor light levels in exhibition and storage areas.