Carol Mancusi-Ungaro Receives Conservation Scholarship Award
Carol Mancusi-Ungaro has received the 2004 College Art Association/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation. She is currently the founding director of the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art at the Harvard University Museums and the director of conservation at the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as a senior lecturer in the history of art and architecture at Harvard.
Ms. Mancusi-Ungaro has demonstrated the critical importance of collaboration between conservation research and practice and technical studies in the history of art. Her contribution to these fields includes a distinguished career as a practicing conservator and an educator. Professor Mancusi-Ungaro received her BA at Connecticut College and continued at New York University-Institute of Fine Arts for an MA in the History of Art and Conservation. She was former chief conservator of The Menil Collection in Houston beginning in 1983 and directed the restoration of the Rothko Chapel paintings. She advised on the restoration of Barnett Newman's Cathedra, and has done defining research in the field for more than 30 years.
At the Harvard University Art Museums' new Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art, Ms. Mancusi-Ungaro oversees the Artist Documentation Project, created in concert with the Whitney Museum, to collect information from modern artists in order to preserve their works properly in the future. Part of this important documentary endeavor includes interviews with artists videotaped in front of their work, where they explain their process and intention. The project began at the Menil Foundation with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Professor Mancusi-Ungaro has also recognized that a significant aspect in the complete education of the art historian, conservator, or interested humanist should include a hands-on approach to works of art. Her Freshman Seminar at Harvard, the Materials and Method in Modern Art, encourages students to understand the concept of artistic intention while examining actual works of art. Ms. Mancusi-Ungaro has generated immense personal respect through her years of professional commitment, and the successful synthesis of her ideas, interests, and skills has inspired both her students and colleagues to greater understanding.
Ms. Mancusi-Ungaro has written on the techniques of Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Jackson Pollock, and Barnett Newman, and her extensive publishing record includes essays in Mark Rothko by Jeffrey Weiss (Yale 2000), Mark Rothko: The Chapel Commission by Carol Mancusi-Ungaro & David Anfam (Houston 1996), Jackson Pollock: Response as Dialogue in Jackson Pollock: New Approaches (MOMA 1999), and A Certain Infantile Thing in Cy Twombly: Daros Collection (Scalo Verlag Ac 2002). Her perspective has illuminated the philosophical and technical complexities faced by conservators who confront the realities of modern art, particularly Abstract Expressionism and its wide range of non-traditional materials, techniques, and generally intrinsic impermanence.
The College Art Association/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation was initiated in 1990 and for 13 years has recognized an “outstanding contribution by one or more persons who individually or jointly, have enhanced the understanding of art through the application of knowledge and experience in conservation, art history, and art.”
This year's committee: Elizabeth Darrow, independent scholar; Chair; James Coddington, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Andrea Kirsh, independent curator and scholar; and Rustin Levenson, Rustin Levenson Art Conservation Associates.