Mending in the Museum: The Professionalization of Textile Conservation

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Eileen Travell

A close-up of Sarah Scaturro.

Sarah Scaturro

As anyone who has ever had a beloved pair of jeans or favorite T-shirt can attest, clothes fall apart. If you want to save them, you need to mend them and there are good and bad ways to do that. The same is true for historically important textiles. Art conservation is still a young science and textile conservation is even younger. Sarah Scaturro, conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will speak on textile conservation as a profession with its own set of ethical issues, scientific techniques, and artistic practices, in this year’s Ruth Ketterer Harris Lecture. Following the lecture, an opening reception for the new exhibit “Remaking the Renaissance” takes place in the Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery.

media release: Since 1990, the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection has proudly sponsored the annual Ruth Ketterer Harris Lecture series in honor of Ruth Ketterer Harris, the collection’s first curator. We are thrilled to share Sarah Scaturro, Eric and Jane Nord Chief Conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will be the 2024 lecturer.

Mending in the Museum: The Professionalization of Textile Conservation

Art conservation is a young profession, and the discipline of textile conservation is even younger, beginning in the middle of the 20^th century. This lecture will discuss the emergence of textile conservation as a profession with its own set of ethical issues, scientific techniques, and artistic practices. Case studies discussed include the Costume Institute and Textile Conservation Department in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA; the Textile Conservation Centre and the Victoria & Albert Museum, both in London, UK; and the Abegg-Stiftung, in Riggisberg, Switzerland.

About the speaker:

Sarah Scaturro is the Eric and Jane Nord Chief Conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she oversees the conservation and technical research program for the Museum’s encyclopedic collection. Previously she was the head conservator of the Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the textile conservator and assistant fashion curator of the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. She publishes and lectures internationally and has developed and taught graduate courses for the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons the New School University. Her work has been featured widely in media such as American Vogue, New Yorker, New York Times, LA Times, The Art Newspaper, CBS This Morning, Dressed: A Fashion History podcast, BBC, and many more. She earned her MA in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, and Museum Practice from the Fashion Institute of Technology and her MPhil in Design History and Material Culture Studies from Bard Graduate Center. She is writing her doctoral dissertation at BGC on the history of fashion conservation. Sarah is an elected Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation. Sarah can be found at www.exhibitingfashion.com