Contact details:

Conservation of Wall Painting Department

Courtauld Institute of Art

Somerset House

Strand

London

WC2R 0RN

 

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7848 2848

Fax: +44 (0) 20 7848 2878

sharon.cather@courtauld.ac.uk

Sharon Cather was educated at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Princeton University where she worked particularly on the drawings of Gianlorenzo Bernini. After teaching in the History of Art Department at the University of Cambridge, she helped establish the Conservation of Wall Painting Department at the Courtauld Institute in 1985.  She is currently preparing a book on the conservation of the Romanesque wall  paintings of Hardham Church (Sussex), and is Chair of the Technical Committee of the International Institute of Conservation’s 2010 Istanbul Congress on ‘Conservation in the Eastern Mediterranean’. She supervises departmental fieldwork programmes in China, Cyprus, India, Jordan and Malta, as well as MA and PhD research. She is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a Fellow of the International Institute of Conservation.

 

Current research/interests

 

  • The diagnosis of environmental causes of deterioration, the technology of wall paintings, methods and materials of remedial interventions, and conservation theory.

 

Programmes taught during the forthcoming academic year

 

 

Recent publications

 


Published in 2003

‘Assessing causes and mechanisms of detrimental change to wall paintings’, in Conserving the Painted Past: Developing Approaches to Wall Painting Conservation (Post-prints of an English Heritage Conference, 1999), eds. R. Gowing and A. Heritage, London 2003, 64-74

 

‘Aqueous extraction of soluble salts from porous materials: alternatives and contra-indications’, in Mauersalze und Architekturoberfläche (Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Dresden, 1 – 3 February 2002), eds. H. Leitner et al., Dresden 2003, 167-72

 

Published in 2004

‘Late medieval paintings at Carlisle’ (with D. Park), in Carlisle and Cumbria: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology (British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 27), eds. M. McCarthy and D. Weston, Leeds 2004, 214-31.

 

Contribution to Masaccio e Masolino, pittori e frescanti: dalla tecnica allo stile (Convegno internazionale di studi, June 2002, Florence – San Giovanni Valdarno), ed. C. Frosinini, Milan 2004, 243-6.

 

Published in 2006

‘Trans-technological methodology: setting performance criteria for conserving wall paintings’, in Far East Asian Mural Paintings: Diagnosis, Conservation and Restoration (Proceedings of a conference at Ravenna, May 2004), ed. R. Mazzeo, Ravenna 2006, 89-95.

Published in 2007
‘’Issues in the conservation of mural paintings: past and present’, in Mural Paintings of the Silk Road: Cultural Exchanges between East and West (Proceedings of the 29th International Symposium on the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, Tokyo, January 2006), ed. K. Yamauchi, Y. Taniguchi and T. Uno, London 2007, 173-9 (also published in the Japanese version of the Proceedings).

Published in 2008
‘Micro-Raman fluorescence spectroscopy for the assessment of effects of the exposure to light of films of egg white and egg yolk’ (with I. Osticioli, A. Nevin, M. Becucci, D. Anglos, A. Burnstock and E. Castelucci), Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, 39 (2008), 307-13.

‘Stratigraphic analysis of organic materials in wall painting samples using micro-FTIR Attenuated Total reflectance and a novel sample preparation technique’ (with C. Martin de Fonjaudran, A. Nevin and F. Piqué), Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry, 392 (2008), 77-86.