The Swedish National Historical Museums, supported by The Getty Foundation, announced the Skokloster Summer Institute, a workshop that is part of the inaugural Conserving Canvas Initiative.

The Getty Foundation grant will be used to organize a 13-day collections-based seminar for conservators and curators to study canvas paintings at Skokloster Castle in Sweden. The Skokloster Summer Institute will be focusing on state-of-the-art issues and reflect on contemporary and historical practices related to the conservation of paintings on canvas. The maximum number of participants for the workshop will be sixteen – eight conservators and eight curators. The intensive course will promote the understanding of the structural behavior of paintings on canvas, the deterioration of materials, and the impact of conservation interventions. The Skokloster Castle collection kept over centuries in an uncontrolled inner climate will give a unique opportunity to study, analyze and assess three 17th century paintings, including Jacob Jordaens’s The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt, in situ as well as to study how the paintings relate to their collection and setting and to legacies of past change. The conservator´s choices for treatment options need to be carefully considered often in collaboration with the curator and/or conservation scientist.

The target audience for the workshop will be mid-career conservators and curators working in the museum environment or a historic house, although private conservators and curators working regularly with museum collections may also apply. All applicants are expected to be active in the field of structural repair of canvas paintings or entrusted with the care of paintings on canvas.

Deadline for applications: 31 January 2019. To consult the program and to apply, visit shm.se/en/conserving-canvas-skokloster-summer-institute