In addition to coursework, Stratis and Coddington will each give a lecture scheduled for October 15, 2018 and March 4, 2019, respectively.
The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU today announced the appointments of Harriet Stratis and Jim Coddington as the 2018-19 Judith Praska Distinguished Visiting Professors in Conservation and Technical Studies. Stratis will join the Institute in Fall 2018 and will teach On Paper: Artists’ Methods and Materials in Context. Coddington will offer a course on Materials and Meaning in Abstract Expressionism in Spring 2019.
The Praska Professorships were inaugurated in Fall 2012 through the generosity of an anonymous donor. Inspired by the Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professorship, the position is awarded to two prominent conservators or scientists who bring new areas for research and teaching to the program. In addition to coursework, Stratis and Coddington will each give a lecture scheduled for October 15, 2018 and March 4, 2019, respectively.
Christine Poggi, the Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director of the Institute of Fine Arts, said, “We are delighted to welcome Harriet and Jim to the Institute this year. Their impressive expertise gained through long and successful museum careers will serve as inspiration for our art history students interested in the technical study of collection works.”
“Harriet’s investigations of modern prints and drawings is renowned. Her research has contributed significantly to what we know – in a material way – about works of art on paper. The same can be said for Jim, especially his findings on the Abstract Expressionists. Their contributions to art history and conservation are a model for our students to follow,” observed Margaret Holben Ellis, Chair and Eugene Thaw Professor of Paper Conservation at the Institute’s Conservation Center.
Harriet Stratis served as Conservator of Prints and Drawings and Head of Paper Conservation at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1995-2013. Subsequently, she assumed the role of senior research conservator before retiring in 2017. She holds an MA in Art History and an Advanced Certificate in Conservation from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. Her scholarship has focused on the study of the materials and techniques of 19th-century artists including Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Paul Gauguin, Odilon Redon, and James McNeill Whistler. Throughout her career she has partnered with curators and conservation scientists to explore the myriad ways in which materials usage informs artists’ biographies and the chronological trajectory of their production.
Jim Coddington recently retired from the Museum of Modern Art as the Agnes Gund Chief Conservator after thirty years as a paintings conservator. He has an MS in conservation from the University of Delaware and a BA from Reed College. He has published and lectured on a wide range of research topics, often with art historians, conservators, and scientists. In addition to his conservation-related publications, he has contributed essays as well as technical studies of Pollock, de Kooning, Miro, Cézanne, and Pissarro to catalogs and collections including Mortality/Immortality, Jackson Pollock: New Approaches, De Kooning: A Retrospective, Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting, and Object:Photo. He was co-editor with Maryan Ainsworth of the 1996 issue of the Art Journal devoted to Conservation and Art History.
About the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
The Institute of Fine Arts is an international leader in research and graduate teaching, and is committed to global engagement and advancing the fields of art history, archaeology, and the theory and practice of conservation. New York City, with its incomparable resources and vitality, provides a backdrop and extended campus for the Institute’s activities. Founded in 1960, the Conservation Center is the oldest degree-granting graduate program in art conservation in the United States. The Conservation Center offers a four-year, dual MA/MS graduate program that combines training in conservation with historical, archaeological, curatorial, and scientific studies.