The central role of the Conservation Department is to care for Tate's collection to ensure that it is available for future generations to enjoy. In doing so, conservators must find ways to protect works of art from deterioration, while making them accessible to the viewing public.
Fragile paintings and old frames must be safe to travel without harm - not just to Tate sites, but also as loans to other museums throughout the world. Similarly, sculptures and works of art on paper, whether traditional or very modern, must be protected while on display without compromising the artist's original intentions. Computer-based installations with many different parts, and technology that is sometimes obsolete almost overnight, must somehow remain displayable far into the future, even when the original computer hardware is long gone. This is the extraordinarily broad responsibility of Tate's Conservation Department.
Conservators at Tate are specialised according to the part of the collection they work on: Paintings, Frames, Works of Art on Paper, Sculpture, and Time-Based Media (film, electronic or computer based installations). They are based at Tate Britain (Paintings, Frames, Paper, Sculpture), Tate Modern and at the Stores (Time-Based Media, Sculpture, Paintings and Conservation Technicians). They also make regular visits to support the exhibitions and displays at Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. The number of conservation staff has grown in line with the museum's own expansion, particularly over the past fifteen years.
The department currently numbers between fifty to sixty people (conservators, conservation technicians, conservation scientists and administrators), with full and part-time staff. Numbers vary; the Department takes on interns, working towards completing their formal training, and also employs researchers on short-term contracts funded by outside grants, particularly in our Conservation Science section.
The Conservation Department began in 1955 with one restorer and two technicians at what was then called the Tate Gallery at Millbank (see History of Conservation). At that time, the only way to train in this field was by apprenticeship and it was largely the trade of craftspeople. By the mid 1970s academic training in the field had been introduced in the United Kingdom, along with a new name for this work, 'Conservation' (namely, the restoration and preservation of works of art and precious objects, underpinned by science). At Tate, this change was reflected in the re-naming of restorers as conservators at the end of the 1970s.
It can take up to seven years to train as a conservator (comprising four years for an undergraduate degree, followed by conservation training at Master's level and at least one year as an intern). Due in part to the need to understand a variety of different materials from paint to plastics, this field attracts people from many different backgrounds and interests. Tate's collection ranges from the sixteenth century through to work of the present day - a challenging spectrum of materials to preserve, restore and display. Learn more about our work by visiting the individual specialisms.
March 2007
