Essex Library Presents Anna Swinbourne, Ph.D. to Talk Art Conservation & Impressionism

Celebrate Impressionism with Dr. Anna Swinbourne, Ph.D., Executive Director & CEO of Hill-Stead Museum at Essex Library!

Impressionism turns 150 this year, and Hill-Stead Museum – the marvel with a world-class collection hiding in plain sight in Farmington, CT – is celebrating in an unusual and practical way. Over four weeks this summer, professional conservators cleaned and treated four of its masterworks by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and Claude Monet. Working onsite in a fishbowl setting and funded by the Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project, the conservators removed over a century’s worth of discoloration to bring these paintings back to life before museum visitors’ eyes. The results are spectacular. Dr. Anna Swinbourne will share discoveries the cleaning yielded and will walk us through the history, legacy and bright future of the extraordinary museum that now shares the works of this once-shocking art movement.

About Anna Swinbourne, Ph.D.:
Dr. Anna Swinbourne is Executive Director and CEO of Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, as well as an independent art historian, curator, and art advisor engaged in publication, exhibition and art-market endeavors. From 1999 to 2009, Dr. Swinbourne was on the curatorial staff of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she created a two-volume catalogue on the unparalleled Niarchos Collection, and curated – either independently, or with Chief Curators, Kirk Varnedoe and John Elderfield – major exhibitions on Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Édouard Manet, and James Ensor, the last two of which were awarded First Prize for Best Historical Show of the year by the International Art Critics Association (AICA). Prior to joining MoMA, Anna was an Assistant Vice President in the Impressionist and Modern Art Department of Sotheby’s, New York. Trained at the École du Louvre in Paris, Tufts University (B.A.), and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University (M.A.; Ph.D.), she is a Trustee of Hill-Stead Museum as well as member of the Board of Managers of Lewis Walpole Library of Yale University and the Art Advisory Committee of King Baudouin Foundation United States.