Smithsonian Institution Conservation Department

Smithsonian Institution Conservation Department
Name	Smithsonian Institution Conservation Department
Caption	Conservation work in a Smithsonian laboratory
Formed	1964
Jurisdiction	Smithsonian Institution
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Parent agency	Smithsonian Institution

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Smithsonian Institution Conservation Department

The Smithsonian Institution Conservation Department is the principal preservation and restoration unit within the Smithsonian Institution, responsible for the care of collections held by the National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of American History, National Air and Space Museum, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of African American History and Culture, American Art Museum, and other Smithsonian museums. It serves as an intersection of curatorial practice, materials science, and cultural heritage policy, collaborating with institutions such as the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum.

History and development

The department traces roots to early 20th-century conservation efforts at the United States National Museum and formalized as a centralized service in the 1960s, paralleling professionalization trends seen at the International Council of Museums and the Getty Conservation Institute. Influences included landmark events such as the Great St. Louis Fire responses and postwar cultural heritage initiatives linked to the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program. Expansion followed high-profile projects at the National Zoo specimen collections and specimen stabilization after incidents like the Smithsonian Castle fire debates, prompting coordination with agencies including the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the American Alliance of Museums.

The department is organized into specialty teams aligned with Smithsonian units: objects, paper, photographs, paintings, textiles, ethnographic materials, archeological materials, natural history specimens, and time-based media. It operates conservation laboratories at the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and maintains mobile conservation units for fieldwork at sites like Monticello, Mount Vernon, and Independence Hall. Administrative oversight links to the Office of the Under Secretary for Museums and Culture and the Smithsonian Facilities Engineering Directorate, and the department collaborates with academic partners such as University of Delaware, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Specialized practices include mechanical stabilization used on artifacts like Wright Flyer components, aqueous and non‑aqueous cleaning protocols for Daguerreotype preservation, freeze-drying techniques applied to waterlogged Anas specimens, and consolidants for fragile organic artifacts from Lewis and Clark Expedition collections. The department employs analytical methods derived from collaborations with the National Museum of Natural History Department of Mineral Sciences, including X‑ray fluorescence, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy; it draws on standards from the American Institute for Conservation and case law considerations related to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Research areas encompass preventative conservation, deterioration kinetics for cellulose-based artifacts such as Declaration of Independence facsimiles, pigment degradation studies referencing works by Georgia O'Keeffe in the National Gallery of Art context, and biodiversity specimen stabilization with protocols shared with Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Collaborative projects have linked to the National Science Foundation, the Horizon 2020 framework via transatlantic partnerships with the Tate Modern, and specialized grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Kress Foundation. The department publishes technical reports and contributes to symposiums of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, ICOMOS, and the American Ceramic Society.

The department hosts internships and fellowships connected to programs at Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and university conservation programs at Northumbria University, University of Glasgow, and Buffalo State College. Continuing education workshops have been offered in partnership with the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, Winterthur Museum, Yale University, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Public outreach includes conservation demonstrations in galleries at the National Postal Museum, talks tied to exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and online resources coordinated with the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

High-profile conservation projects include treatment of the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, stabilization of Edgar Allan Poe manuscripts held in collaboration with the Library of Congress, restoration of Gilbert Stuart portraits in tandem with the National Gallery of Art, and insect pest management for textile collections from the Freer Gallery of Art and objects repatriation work relating to communities represented in the National Museum of the American Indian. The department led conservation science for the Star-Spangled Banner campaign and coordinated emergency response during events comparable to hurricane recovery efforts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Institute for Conservation disaster response roster. Case studies include multispectral imaging of Lewis Hine photographs, polymer degradation analysis on aviation materials from the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and collaborative archaeological artifact conservation from expeditions with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Category:Smithsonian Institution Category:Cultural heritage conservation