Edwin Austin Abbey’s Mural Painting: Context and Conservation

Theresa Fairbanks Harris, Senior Conservator of Works on Paper at the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art, and Josephine Rodgers, Curator of Collections and Director of Engagement at the Middlebury College Art Museum, will lead a discussion on the conservation treatment and history of Edwin Austin Abbey’s (1852–1911) drawings at Yale University. The treatment was completed in preparation for the ‘The Dance of Life: Figure and Imagination in American Art, 1876–1917’ exhibition now on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. Magnificent, large-scale preparatory drawings are part of Abbey’s intensely involved artistic process in developing his mural commissions for the Boston Public Library and the Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg. Conservation treatment transformed previously severely damaged work into art for new audiences to appreciate. FREE