Photograph conservation materials research and analysis

Based on studies of the studio’s reference collection, methodologies useful for determining the manufacture date of photographic paper have emerged and are under active development. Such studies can be valuable in the context of authentication, provenance and art historical inquiries. Typically, research involves an assessment of fluorescence behavior, paper fiber content, surface texture and manufacturer markings. The studio’s work exposing fraudulent prints by Lewis Hine was a breakthrough in terms of providing benchmarks for objective and empirical dating of fine art photographic prints.  The Hine analysis received widespread press coverage including articles in ARTnews, The New York Times (x2), The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly and The Economist.   Profiled in the March 2008 issue of ARTnews, the studio’s reference collection and work characterizing photographic prints were described -- “The advances will reduce fraud, influence the marketplace, and even revise art history.”

The studio has invented a color reference for standardizing the photographic documentation of UV induced fluorescence. The patented color reference will be beta tested among select collecting institutions beginning in the Spring of 2012.

In addition, the studio has developed a lighting array and a microscopic imager to capture reflective transform images of microscopic surface textures. In collaboration with the MoMA, Rick Johnson of Cornell University, the studio is producing "micro-RTI" texture images for use in a database lookup and retrieval system to compare unknown textures against a texture library derived from the studio's collection of photographic papers.

A more complete list of past and ongoing studies is available here.