Faces in Focus: Equipping the National Portrait Gallery's New Conservation Laboratory for Photography, Works on Paper and Miniatures

国家肖像画廊成立于1856年，目的是通过肖像画的媒介促进人们对英国历史和文化的欣赏和理解，并促进所有媒体对肖像画的欣赏和理解。这种专业化的关注塑造了该机构及其收藏的发展，画廊现在拥有世界上最大的肖像收藏。作为一个独立的研究组织（IRO），画廊的创造性研究文化使藏品能够用于研究身份，历史，成就，公民身份以及艺术方法和材料的问题，与GLAM和HEI部门的合作伙伴合作。这些合作伙伴关系包括从他们的研究生涯的各个阶段的人，从教授到学生团体被邀请到画廊的研究空间和画廊工作人员开发和共同监督的协作博士生的教学会议。合作伙伴还经常包括创意从业者，如设计师、开发商和作家，以及画廊通过其委托方案和年度国际肖像比赛与之合作的艺术家。总的来说，这些都放大了画廊对英国文化经济的影响，远远超出了画廊的伦敦网站、在线展示以及国家和国际计划的足迹。在画廊的藏品中，收藏品的三个领域相对而言研究不足，因此投资研究能力将提供一个特别的机会：超过25万件作品的照片收藏;近100，000件纸上作品保存在主要，参考和档案收藏中;以及2，500多个微缩模型。目前，这些只能由研究人员在绘画保护工作室，框架工作室或图书馆和档案馆的公共学习室的共享空间进行检查。由于缺乏专业设备和专用空间，技术分析和保护工作不得不外包给外部承包商，最近的项目包括分析底片，以便为安全储存和长期护理提供信息，以及处理艺术家卢西恩·弗洛伊德遗赠给画廊的一些素描本。以这种方式进行研究的相关成本，以及移动作品进行分析的复杂性，都不可避免地限制了画廊对这些国际重要藏品的研究能力。然而，该画廊的变革性的“艺术人”项目将于2023年完成，这促使这些藏品的展示和管理发生了重大变化。更多的作品被整合到新的展览中，并创建了专门的画廊空间，以探索照片，版画，素描和微缩模型的“制作”。与此同时，该建筑项目提供了一个机会，首次为照片，纸上作品和微缩模型创建一个专门的保护实验室，并重新整理底片库。在此背景下，美术馆寻求资金购买分析设备，以优化美术馆在这些专业收藏方面的研究能力。购买FTIR、分光光度计、数字双目显微镜、3D显微镜和便携式提取装置将使美术馆能够发展其在照片、底片、在纸和微缩模型上工作，从而激发和支持新的研究项目。CResCa的资金将得到画廊对工作人员能力投资的补充，首次在核心工作人员中招聘纸上作品和摄影方面的专家保护员。

The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 with the aim of promoting through the medium of portraiture the appreciation and understanding of the people who have made and are making British history and culture, and of promoting the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media. This specialised focus has shaped the development of the institution and its collection, and the Gallery now holds the largest collection of portraits in the world. An Independent Research Organisation (IRO), the Gallery's creative research culture has enabled the collections to be used to examine questions of identity, history, achievement, citizenship, and artistic methods and materials, working with partners across the GLAM and HEI sectors. These partnerships include people from all stages of their research careers, ranging from Professors to student groups that are invited for teaching sessions into the Gallery's research spaces and the Collaborative Doctoral Studentships that Gallery staff develop and co-supervise. Partners also regularly include creative practitioners, such as designers, developers and writers, as well as the artists with whom the Gallery works through its commissioning programme and the annual international portrait competitions. Taken together, these amplify the Gallery's impact on the UK's cultural economy far beyond the footprint of the Gallery's London site, online presence, and the National and International programme.Within the Gallery's holdings, three areas of the Collection are comparatively understudied and therefore investment in research capability would offer a particular opportunity: the Photographs collection of more than 250,000 works; the nearly 100,000 works on paper held within the Primary, Reference and Archive collections; and the more than 2,500 Miniatures. Currently these can only be examined by researchers in the shared spaces of the Painting Conservation Studio, the Framing Studio or the Public Study Room of the Library and Archive. Lack of specialised equipment and a dedicated space has meant that technical analysis and conservation have had to be outsourced to external contractors, with recent projects ranging from the analysis of negatives in order to inform decisions for their safe storage and long-term care, to the treatment of a number of Lucian Freud's sketchbooks, which the artist bequeathed to the Gallery. The costs associated with undertaking research in this way, and the complexity of moving works for analysis, have undeniably restricted the Gallery's research capacity in relation to these internationally significant collections. However, the Gallery's transformative Inspiring People project, due for completion in 2023, has instigated a step-change in relation to the display and management of these collections. More works have been integrated into the new displays, and specialised gallery spaces have been created to explore the 'Making' of Photographs, Prints, Drawings and Miniatures. At the same time, the building project has offered the opportunity to create a dedicated Conservation Laboratory for Photographs, Works on Paper and Miniatures for the first time, and to refurbish the Negative Store. It is within this context that the Gallery seeks funding to purchase analytical equipment that will optimise the Gallery's research capability in relation to these specialist collections.The purchase of FTIR, a Spectrophotometer, a Digital Binocular Microscope, a 3D Microscope and a Portable Extraction Unit would enable the Gallery to develop its in-house expertise in the materials and techniques of Photographs, Negatives, Works on Paper and Miniatures, and thereby to instigate and support new research projects. Funding from CResCa would be complemented by the Gallery's commitment to investment in staff capacity through the recruitment of specialist conservators in Works on Paper and Photography in core staff for the first time.