The Big Picture (Online Only)

Lee Ann Daffner is the Andrew W. Mellon Conservator of Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art where she established the museum’s first photograph conservation section in 1998. She received her M.A. in Art Conservation from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York in 1994. Before joining MoMA, she held conservation appointments at The Metropolitan Museum, Harvard University, The Library of Congress, and The Better Image.

Daffner oversees the conservation and preservation of all the photographs in the museum, located in every curatorial department, library and archives. Daffner promotes materials-based scholarship and assimilation of this content in curatorial, technical art history and academic initiatives. From 2009 to 2015, she directed the conservation portion of the cross-disciplinary study of the Museum’s Thomas Walther Collection of Modernist Photography, co-edited the Object:Photo print and online publications, and has contributed essays to numerous exhibition catalogues. She currently serves as Associate Editor for JAIC.

Dr. Nora Kennedy is the Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of the Department of Photograph Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, where she has been on staff since 1990. Established in 2015, her department conserves The Met’s photographs, but has also taken on oversight of time-based media (TBM) conservation for the Museum. In addition to working on acquisitions, exhibitions and loans, Met conservators and scientists continue to expand the Museum’s initiatives in scholarship, education, publication, and advocacy. Kennedy is an adjunct faculty member of New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts Conservation Center where she has served as an advisor to the new TBM conservation specialization. She is proud of her international collaborations including the Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative (www.meppi.me) to provide preservation training for collection keepers throughout the region. In 2003 the University of Delaware awarded her a Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement. In 2006 she was awarded the American Institute for Conservation’s Sheldon and Carolyn Keck Award recognizing a sustained record of excellence in the education and training of conservation professionals. In 2011 she received the HP Image Permanence Award. In 2019 she was honored with a doctor honoris causa from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia.

Krista Lough opened a private practice in Chicago in 2019. She received her BFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a MA with a certificate of advanced study in art conservation from Buffalo State College. Krista has held Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago and completed graduate internships at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Paul Messier LLC. She is the Chair of the FAIC Collaborative Workshops in Photograph Conservation Advisory Committee and the Vice-Chair of the Cooperstown Buffalo Alumni Steering Board.

A native of Rochester, New York, Peter Mustardo began his career at the George Eastman Museum in 1978. After a Masters degree from Columbia University in Preservation Administration, he took a position with the NYC Municipal Archives where he was responsible for their Preservation Section, overseeing the conservation laboratory and the photographic division of the largest municipal archive in the USA. He moved to the National Archives in Washington where he was their Preservation Coordinator, disseminating official preservation policy across the country from NYC to Texas, California to Alaska. 

In 1991 he co-founded The Better Image® a private practice Devoted to the Conservation and Preservation of Art and Historic Photographs.  

Luisa Casella is the chief conservator at West Lake Conservators. She received a baccalaureate  and masters degree in conservation from the Instituto Politécnico de Tomar in Portugal. In 1996, Luisa started working as a paper conservator at the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa and as a photograph conservator at the Instituto Politécnico de Tomar. In 1998, she joined the staff of the private photograph conservation practice Luis Pavão, Limitada, where she worked in conservation treatment projects of large-scale photograph collections in several museums, archives and cultural institutions in Portugal, and taught workshops throughout the country for collection managers and conservation technicians. Luisa was awarded a two-year Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of the Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation at George Eastman House and the Image Permanence Institute. She was the first recipient of the Research Scholarship in Photograph Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, researching the light-fading behavior of autochrome dyes under anoxic conditions. Additionally, Luisa worked as a photograph conservator at the Harry Ransom Center where she had the opportunity to focus on conservation treatment of objects from large panoramas to cased objects. 

Saori Kawasumi Lewis is an Associate Conservator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. She was introduced to art conservation at Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services, LLC. while pursuing Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography. In 2012, she earned Master’s degree in Art Conservation with emphasis on photographs conservation from SUNY Buffalo State College. During graduate training, she completed internships at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Weissman Preservation Center, and Cultural Heritage Recovery Center, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her current research interests include daguerreotypes by Henry Fitz Jr., American Proto-Modern photography, and application of digital tools in conservation.

Emily Phoenix is the Head Preparator in the conservation department at the George Eastman Museum. Emily and her team are responsible for framing, mountmaking, crating, lighting, and installing exhibitions. She received her MA in Photographic Preservation & Collections Management from the George Eastman House/Ryerson University. She previously worked at Chicago Albumen Works as a conservation technician specializing in deteriorated acetate negative recovery. Her love of working with photographs led her back to Rochester in 2015, where she has enjoyed the many challenges of preparing the museum’s unique collection objects for exhibition and travel.

Sarah Freeman joined the PaperConservation Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2006. She holds an M.A.and certificate of advanced study from the Buffalo State College program in artconservation. Her interests include preventive care of photographs andexperimental photography. Sarah has participated in research and non-invasiveanalysis on photographs in the Museum's collection, along with presenting andpublishing on microfade testing to assess light sensitivity of materialcultural heritage, technical studies on historic photographic processes, andmounting and storage of large format prints. Recently, she has been researchingnew treatment applications for photographs.

Anna Laganà is a Senior Research Specialist at the GettyConservation Institute (GCI) where she leads research projects and develops workshops on the conservation of plastics. Before joining the GCI, Anna worked as Coordinator of the Contemporary Art Conservation Laboratory at the Centro Conservazione Restauro la Venaria Reale, as a conservator/researcher at theCultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, and lecturer at the University ofAmsterdam coordinating the Postgraduate program 1 in Conservation of Modern andContemporary Art. Anna serves as Coordinator for Modern Materials and Contemporary Art Working Group, ICOM-CC. She publishes extensively and teaches internationally on plastics conservation.