Faces in Focus: Equipping the National Portrait Gallery's New Conservation Laboratory for Photography, Works on Paper and Miniatures

聚焦面孔：为国家肖像画廊新的摄影、纸上作品和细密画保护实验室配备装备

• 批准号: AH/X01018X/1
• 负责人: Alexandra Gent
• 金额: $ 21.14万
• 依托单位: National Portrait Gallery
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX01018X%2F1
• 关键词: Faces; Focus; Equipping; National; Portrait

The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 with the aim of promoting through the medium of portraiture the appreciation and understanding of the people who have made and are making British history and culture, and of promoting the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media. This specialised focus has shaped the development of the institution and its collection, and the Gallery now holds the largest collection of portraits in the world. An Independent Research Organisation (IRO), the Gallery's creative research culture has enabled the collections to be used to examine questions of identity, history, achievement, citizenship, and artistic methods and materials, working with partners across the GLAM and HEI sectors. These partnerships include people from all stages of their research careers, ranging from Professors to student groups that are invited for teaching sessions into the Gallery's research spaces and the Collaborative Doctoral Studentships that Gallery staff develop and co-supervise. Partners also regularly include creative practitioners, such as designers, developers and writers, as well as the artists with whom the Gallery works through its commissioning programme and the annual international portrait competitions. Taken together, these amplify the Gallery's impact on the UK's cultural economy far beyond the footprint of the Gallery's London site, online presence, and the National and International programme.Within the Gallery's holdings, three areas of the Collection are comparatively understudied and therefore investment in research capability would offer a particular opportunity: the Photographs collection of more than 250,000 works; the nearly 100,000 works on paper held within the Primary, Reference and Archive collections; and the more than 2,500 Miniatures. Currently these can only be examined by researchers in the shared spaces of the Painting Conservation Studio, the Framing Studio or the Public Study Room of the Library and Archive. Lack of specialised equipment and a dedicated space has meant that technical analysis and conservation have had to be outsourced to external contractors, with recent projects ranging from the analysis of negatives in order to inform decisions for their safe storage and long-term care, to the treatment of a number of Lucian Freud's sketchbooks, which the artist bequeathed to the Gallery. The costs associated with undertaking research in this way, and the complexity of moving works for analysis, have undeniably restricted the Gallery's research capacity in relation to these internationally significant collections. However, the Gallery's transformative Inspiring People project, due for completion in 2023, has instigated a step-change in relation to the display and management of these collections. More works have been integrated into the new displays, and specialised gallery spaces have been created to explore the 'Making' of Photographs, Prints, Drawings and Miniatures. At the same time, the building project has offered the opportunity to create a dedicated Conservation Laboratory for Photographs, Works on Paper and Miniatures for the first time, and to refurbish the Negative Store. It is within this context that the Gallery seeks funding to purchase analytical equipment that will optimise the Gallery's research capability in relation to these specialist collections.The purchase of FTIR, a Spectrophotometer, a Digital Binocular Microscope, a 3D Microscope and a Portable Extraction Unit would enable the Gallery to develop its in-house expertise in the materials and techniques of Photographs, Negatives, Works on Paper and Miniatures, and thereby to instigate and support new research projects. Funding from CResCa would be complemented by the Gallery's commitment to investment in staff capacity through the recruitment of specialist conservators in Works on Paper and Photography in core staff for the first time.

国家肖像画廊成立于 1856 年，旨在通过肖像画媒介促进那些创造和正在创造英国历史和文化的人们的欣赏和理解，并促进所有媒体对肖像画的欣赏和理解。这种专业关注塑造了该机构及其收藏的发展，画廊现在拥有世界上最大的肖像收藏。作为一个独立研究组织 (IRO)，画廊的创造性研究文化使馆藏能够与 GLAM 和 HEI 领域的合作伙伴合作，用于研究身份、历史、成就、公民身份以及艺术方法和材料等问题。这些合作伙伴包括来自研究生涯各个阶段的人员，从教授到受邀进入画廊研究空间进行教学课程的学生团体，以及画廊工作人员开发和共同监督的合作博士生奖学金。合作伙伴还经常包括创意从业者，例如设计师、开发人员和作家，以及画廊通过其委托计划和年度国际肖像比赛与之合作的艺术家。总而言之，这些都放大了画廊对英国文化经济的影响，远远超出了画廊伦敦站点、在线展示以及国家和国际项目的影响力。在画廊的藏品中，藏品的三个领域相对而言研究不足，因此投资于研究能力将提供一个特殊的机会：超过 250,000 件作品的照片收藏；主要馆藏、参考馆藏和档案馆藏中近 100,000 件纸质作品；以及超过 2,500 个微缩模型。目前，这些只能由研究人员在绘画保护工作室、框架工作室或图书馆和档案馆的公共学习室的共享空间中进行检查。缺乏专业设备和专用空间意味着技术分析和保护必须外包给外部承包商，最近的项目范围从负面分析以便为其安全储存和长期护理决策提供信息，到对卢西安·弗洛伊德的一些素描本的处理，这些素描本是艺术家遗赠给画廊的。以这种方式进行研究的相关成本，以及移动作品进行分析的复杂性，无可否认地限制了画廊对这些具有国际意义的藏品的研究能力。然而，画廊的变革性 Inspiring People 项目将于 2023 年完成，该项目已在这些藏品的展示和管理方面引发了重大变革。更多的作品被整合到新的展览中，并创建了专门的画廊空间来探索照片、版画、绘画和微缩模型的“制作”。与此同时，该建筑项目首次为照片、纸上作品和缩微模型创建了一个专门的保护实验室，并翻新了负片商店。正是在这种背景下，画廊寻求资金购买分析设备，以优化画廊在这些专业藏品方面的研究能力。购买 FTIR、分光​​光度计、数字双目显微镜、3D 显微镜和便携式提取装置将使画廊能够发展其在照片、底片、纸上作品和微型画的材料和技术方面的内部专业知识，从而发起和支持新的研究项目。 CResCa 的资金将得到画廊对员工能力投资的补充，通过首次在核心员工中招募纸上作品和摄影专业修复人员。