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Becoming an art restorer takes time and energy. It's a career that combines artistic talents and a scientific approach to solving problems on a piece of art. Art restorers ensure that pieces of art continue their long lives into the future, but how do you become an art restorer?
You usually need at least a bachelor's degree in an art or chemistry-related field to become an art restorer. You also need to go through an apprenticeship to train your skills. Art restoration requires patience and specialized knowledge of color composition and restoration methods.
In this article, I'll tackle important questions related to art restoration, such as how long it takes to become an art restorer. Also, I'll discuss the different stages you must go through to become an art restorer and the major skills for such a career.
Specifying the exact figure an art restorer makes isn't that easy. An art restorer's salary depends on the following:
Additionally, some art restorers work privately or as freelancers, complicating things further. These art restorers are free to devise their payment options, which are usually:
Prices also depend on the size of a piece of art and the damage present.
The average annual salary for an art restorer working for an institution in the US is around $42,000. However, it can range anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 a year.
More well-known institutions, such as prestigious museums and libraries, pay art restorers slightly more than average places of work of this type. Moreover, such institutions have better, up-to-date equipmentart restorers have at their disposal. These art restorers usually work on museum pieces rather than privately-owned items.
Freelanceand self-employed art restorers don't usually have the same luxury, which affects their price — even forcing them to be able to restore only some art pieces that don't require special equipment.
The discussion about the difference between art restorers and art conservatorsis as old as time. On the surface, the titles of these two careers give us some indications about what they do.
Art restorers restorean art piece to its original look. On the other hand, art conservators conservea piece of art as they "inherited" it from previous generations. However, the distinction between the two's sometimes hard to notice.
Many professional institutions even use the two terms interchangeably. The internet's the same in this respect. Learn.org states clearly that "art restorers are conservators." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics mentions that only museum technicians and conservators restore art pieces.
Practically speaking, let's say there was a tear in a painting or a crack on a precious vase. Art conservatives wouldn't meddle too much with fixing the issue because they believe it's not their role to change a piece of art history. That tear or crack's become a piece of that art. Their only job's to keep the art piece from deteriorating further — nothing else.
Art restorers understand (against popular belief) the importance of each art piece's history. Still, they're interested in fixingthe problem so the public can enjoy an art piece the way the artist imagined it originally. So, they'll use different methods to fix the tear or the crack. If necessary, they'll color over it to match the original art piece.
People often think art restorers don't have enough respect for an art piece because they use all these methods to work over the original artist. The issue here's more philosophical. Art restorers show their respect through the restoration process so that you can enjoy the artist's original vision. For art restorers, an art piece isn't a sacred object that mustn't be touched.
Because there are some differences between art restorers' and conservators' methodology, their training, interests, and education may also differ, but how long does it take to become an art restorer?
Traditionally, art restorers didn't need a bachelor's degree. They only needed to work under a "master" as apprentices for some time. Today, however, it's welcomed if art restorers have a bachelor's degree in art or chemistry-related fields. These programs will usually take anywhere from two to four years.
Some art restorers decide to continue their education and have an MA degree also. It all depends on what a particular institution's requirements are.
Sadly, being passionate about art isn't enough to make you an art restorer. You'll have to spend a lot of time and energy on the training and educational process every art restorer needs to go through. It's an awe-inspiring career that doesn't just happen overnight. So, let's see all the aspects of becoming an art restorer.
Just like art conservators need to have a specific level of formal education, art restorers nowadays also need to follow the same path. You can have undergraduate programs related to either artor chemistry.
That's because art restorers deal with chemicals when restoring art pieces, so they'll need to have a good background in chemistry. You'll also need to know how various chemicals affect different kinds of materials used for art.
You might also learn about art history, but that's tied more with art conserving. However, you'll need to understand the historical usages of numerous methods, paints, and materials.
After you finish your formal education, you'll need to trainin art restoration for some time. It depends on a specific institution how long the apprenticeship process lasts, but it's generally around a few months. During that period, you'll actively work with a professional art restorer to gain some experience — which can be paid or unpaid.
Even if unpaid, an internship's an important step you can't do without in this profession. It's highly important you learn from example what you've been taught. That's because art restorers often deal with extremely old and valuable items, and a slight mistake can ruin the whole art piece.
Your apprenticeship will also depend on the specialized area of your interest, which leads us to the next point.
You should pick your sphere of interest as soon as you can. That way, you can pick courses about that specific field. Also, you'll find a place for your internship much easier when you know what you're interested in.
There are many kinds of art, and you can't be an art restorer for each one. Some of the most common specialized fields for art restorers to choose from are:
As you can see, it's mostly to do with the kind of material an artist uses. All these techniques and materials require a lot of specialized knowledge, so an art restorer can't be an expert in every one of these.
Also, there are further sub-categorizations for each technique. For instance, if you're a painting restorer, you might be specialized in a specific period or technique, like 19th-century European paintings.
So, you finished your formal education and passed your apprenticeship. All that's left now is to continue learning about your trade until you retire! Unlike many other manual professions, art restoration constantly produces new techniques and technology.
Many restoration methods used in the past are no longer used or even considered ethical in this profession. That's because many older methods did more harm to an art piece than good.
Luckily, nowadays, art restorers work with completely reversible materials. That means future restorers and conservators can remove an art restorer's material without damaging an art piece.
Restorers in the past used rabbit skin glue, for instance, which dries over time and turns to small dust particles. They'd also use pieces of canvas or linen to patch holes in paintings. Nowadays, painting restorers (and conservators) use materials like:
Now you start to understand why a good knowledge of chemistry's highly important for art restoration.
Apart from formal education and specialized knowledge, art restorers also need to possess a few critical skillsto have a successful career. Just like lawyers need to have good argumentative skills and critical thinking, art restorers need certain skills as prerequisites before they even start working. So, think twice if this career's right for you if you don't have most of these skills.
If you saw an art restorer, you'd probably see them hunched over an art piece, possibly wearing magnifying glasses, restoring some tiny detail. That's pretty much 90% of what art restorers do.
Unprofessional eyes see the whole art piece, a painting, for example. However, art restorers must focus on tiny details that combine to make the entire art piece. That's what they restore! Usually, the smallest details can be the most difficult to restore. These details require a lot of time and energy, which brings us to the next skill.
Trust me, if you're not ready to spend hours, and even days, on one portion of an art piece, art restoring isn't for you. This profession's allabout patience. If you're interested in being a painting restorer, you should train yourself to be extremely patient with almost every step.
One of the first steps is always removing old varnish, which makes a painting look darker and lifeless over time. For this step, you need to use small cotton balls and remove tiny amounts of varnish, quickly turning the cotton ball brown. Then you need to take a new one and repeat the process. It takes hours just to finish this step.
At the retouchingphase, where you add reversible paint, depending on the damage, you also might spend hours adding tiny amounts of paint to a painting. Of course, there's all the waiting for things to dry between different phases.
Apart from being knowledgeable about chemical materials used in art restoration, you also need to have some artistic talent for your specialized field. If you're a painting restorer, you'd need to know at least one of these:
In the retouching phase, you'll sometimes need to add paint to a damaged area, and you'll need to know how to get the same color that's in that area of an art piece. Otherwise, you'd ruin that piece of art, and the news is filled with those examples.
Art restorers have a somewhat limited number of places where they can work. Unfortunately, art restoration's needed in only some high-culture institutions which aim to conserve a country's culture.
Additionally, during or immediately after formal education, art restorers are also limited to these same institutions for their apprenticeship period. Places where art restorers can find employment include:
Art restorers try to restore a piece of art to its original condition and artistic vision. To achieve that, art restorers use various techniques and specialized knowledge. Because of that, they often need to have a bachelor's in studio art or art conservation.
Essential skills art restorators need to have include:
In the 21st century, art restorers also need to follow new technical and technological trends in their field.
