
Restoration and Conservation
Our team of conservators and conservation technicians plays a vital role at the National Gallery of Canada.
Each year in the Restoration and Conservation Laboratory, our team examines nearly 2,000 items in various media, ranging from paintings and sculptures to frames, decorative art and much more.
This essential work ensures that objects are preserved for the benefit of present and future generations. Some objects are explored in greater depth, researched and restored to allow them to be clearly understood, and returned to an apparence close to their original state.
Learn more about some of the team’s exciting projects on this page, and follow a few of the objects that are keeping them busy in the lab.
Featured Videos
Listen in as Marie-Catherine Cyr, Assistant Conservator of Paintings, talks about the main conservation challenges the team encountered during the pandemic.
NGC Senior Conservator of Contemporary Art, Geneviève Saulnier, speaks about the many surprises she has encountered when it comes to preserving contemporary works of art.
Watch how our conservation team prepared the marble bust Empress Josephine, by Joseph Chinard, for its big moment at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Pochades are small paintings, typically produced rapidly by an artist working outdoors. Learn more about their conservation with Stephen Gritt, Director of Conservation and Technical Research.
Follow the journey of the Woolsey Family's Caudle Cup, from acquisition to presentation in the Canadian and Indigenous Galleries.
Learn more about an exceptional restoration treatment for the centrepiece to Ron Moppett's polyptych Whatif/Twilight, which had been submerged during the 2013 Calgary floods.
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