Shank Wins Rome Prize

William Shank has been awarded the Rome Prize in Conservation/Historic Preservation for 2004/2005 by the American Academy in Rome. Formerly Chief Conservator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mr. Shank is now with Conservation Resources Management. He is also a founder of Rescue Public Murals (RPM), a project being developed in cooperation with Heritage Preservation.

Mr. Shank will research the aging of contemporary murals and the various approaches to their conservation. Resources at ICCROM, the International Center for the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Rome, which has a long history in studying the care of historic murals, as well as a graffiti abatement program with the Comune di Roma, will be available to him as a Visiting Fellow.

“As a conservator of modern and contemporary paintings, I have taken on the challenge of the often-neglected care of modern murals. Resources at Rome’s ICCROM will help to bridge the gap between the conservation of traditional frescoes and the care of contemporary wall paintings,” Mr. Shank said.

Mr. Shank was trained as an art historian and art conservator at the Villa Schifanoia in Florence, as well as the graduate program of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and the Harvard University Art Museums. He worked at SFMOMA from 1985 through 1999 and is currently preparing a conservation-based exhibition about a twice-painted painting from 1900, "A Hidden Picasso." The exhibit will open at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in September 2004 during the I.I.C. conference. Mr. Shank and his family will be in residence at the American Academy from February through July 2005.

The 28 Rome Prize Competition winners were announced at a ceremony in New York in April by the Trustees of the American Academy in Rome. Each Rome Prize is a residential fellowship that provides room and board, a stipend, and studio for the recipient to live and work at the Academy facilities in Rome. American artists and scholars compete from all over the United States through an open competition that is juried by leading artists and scholars in the different fields.

Established in 1894 and chartered by an Act of Congress in 1905, the American Academy in Rome is a center that sustains independent artistic pursuits and humanistic studies. For more information about the Rome Prize, visit www.aarome.org/prize.htm.