Andrea Kirsh and Rustin S. Levenson received the College Art Association/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation at the Heritage Preservation annual meeting in Dallas on May 31, 2001. Barbara Mangum presented the award.

The award was initiated in 1990 for 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. Ms. Kirsh and Ms. Levenson were honored for collaboration on the book Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination In Art Historical Studies, Yale University Press, 2000.

Seeing Through Paintings presents each layer of an easel painting: canvas or wood panel supports, ground layers, paint films, and varnishes, accompanied by illustrated case studies of works by Hals, Rembrandt, Picasso, Degas, Manet, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Pollock, Chardin, El Greco, Constable, and Mondrian.

Because the book is the collaboration of an art historian and a conservator, it is readily accessible and useful to professionals throughout the field of art. John Walsh, former Director of the Getty Museum, wrote, "An essential handbook for the pro, and also a beautifully illustrated primer for the layperson. Kirsh and Levenson teach the most valuable lessons of all about painting: how meanings, materials, and techniques are bound up together."

Andrea Kirsh is an independent scholar and curator who has served as curator at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami; Assistant Director for Miami-Dade Art in Public Places; and Director, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis.

Rustin Levenson is a paintings conservator who operates studios in New York City and Miami, Florida. In addition to being a CAP assessor, she has served as a conservator for Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, the Canadian Conservation Institute, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The awards committee noted that there were many outstanding nominees this year. The committee consisted of Joe Fronek, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Barbara Mangum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Joyce Hill Stoner, Winterthur Museum and University of Delaware; and Frank Zuccari, The Art Institute of Chicago.