ROCHESTER - The George Eastman House museum of photography has bagged a $4 million gift to extend its pioneering academic program in photograph conservation - a very rare specialty devoted to safeguarding the world's most treasured pictures.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation donation will be spread over four years, fulfilling the museum's 10-year mission of training some 40 advanced students from around the world for a profession in which fewer than 100 people work full time.
"Photography changed the way we think and changed what we know," Grant Romer, director of conservation at the Eastman House, said Friday. "You'd think there would be great investments from many sources assuring the preservation of the most important part of that record. In actuality, it's a very, very small field with very small amounts of money invested in it."
Britain, France, the United States and Germany steered photography from its birth in 1826 into a mass commodity that transformed human consciousness. Only in 1975 did they begin to set up institutes devoted solely to preserving photographs.
The pioneer was the Eastman House, a photography patriarch's mansion that was turned into a museum in 1949. Fifty years later, the museum launched another first - an advanced residency program in photograph conservation - to spread much-needed expertise to countries with dazzling photo archives but few, if any, premier caretakers.
So far, 24 people have been through the two-year fellowship program and "almost 90 percent of them are actively working in institutional conservation, either as conservators or teachers," Romer said.
During their stays in Rochester, a few of them found themselves honing in on the hottest issue driving their field: How to unmask fake vintage photographs.
The 1990s ushered in a steep rise in prices - one collector paid a record $1 million in 1999 for a 1932 print of "Glass Tears" by Man Ray. Today, supposedly rare photos that turn out to be posthumous fakes are popping up more than ever.
The New York-based Mellon Foundation donated $3.7 million to pay for the program's first six years. Through its latest grant, another 16 fellowships will be offered until 2009, with this year's cadre including students from Spain, Russia, Israel, Mexico and the United States.
The rapid advent of digital technology in the 21st century gives photo conservation a new urgency.
"The field will shrink to maybe 10 or 15 specialists who will serve fundamentally the high-end, fine art collecting market and not so much the institutional needs," he said.
"Photography changed the way we think and changed what we know," Grant Romer, director of conservation at the Eastman House, said Friday. "You'd think there would be great investments from many sources assuring the preservation of the most important part of that record. In actuality, it's a very, very small field with very small amounts of money invested in it."
Britain, France, the United States and Germany steered photography from its birth in 1826 into a mass commodity that transformed human consciousness. Only in 1975 did they begin to set up institutes devoted solely to preserving photographs.
The pioneer was the Eastman House, a photography patriarch's mansion that was turned into a museum in 1949. Fifty years later, the museum launched another first - an advanced residency program in photograph conservation - to spread much-needed expertise to countries with dazzling photo archives but few, if any, premier caretakers.
So far, 24 people have been through the two-year fellowship program and "almost 90 percent of them are actively working in institutional conservation, either as conservators or teachers," Romer said.
During their stays in Rochester, a few of them found themselves honing in on the hottest issue driving their field: How to unmask fake vintage photographs.
The 1990s ushered in a steep rise in prices - one collector paid a record $1 million in 1999 for a 1932 print of "Glass Tears" by Man Ray. Today, supposedly rare photos that turn out to be posthumous fakes are popping up more than ever.
The New York-based Mellon Foundation donated $3.7 million to pay for the program's first six years. Through its latest grant, another 16 fellowships will be offered until 2009, with this year's cadre including students from Spain, Russia, Israel, Mexico and the United States.
The rapid advent of digital technology in the 21st century gives photo conservation a new urgency.
"The field will shrink to maybe 10 or 15 specialists who will serve fundamentally the high-end, fine art collecting market and not so much the institutional needs," he said.
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