Laura Eva Hartman, DMA Paintings Conservator, shares details about her work conserving The Thankful Poor by Henry Ossawa Tanner, including the discovery of an underpainting using X-ray technology. The Thankful Poor is featured in Focus On: Henry Ossawa Tanner, on view through January 2, 2022.
This is one of a three-talk series featuring Laura Eva Hartman and other DMA staff, who will discuss their conservation work on paintings and objects featured in the exhibitions Focus On: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia, and Van Gogh and the Olive Groves.
Laura Eva Hartman is the Paintings Conservator at the Dallas Museum of Art. She joined the DMA in October 2015 to work alongside Mark Leonard in establishing the formal Paintings Conservation Department at the DMA. Hartman undertakes the examination and treatment of paintings in the DMA’s collection, as well as of loaned works for special exhibitions, working closely with colleagues in the Curatorial and Conservation departments. Notable projects include contributions to the Van Gogh and the Olive Groves exhibition and catalog, and significant treatments for works in the DMA’s collection, including Jackson Pollock’s Cathedral, Louis Anquetin’s Woman at Her Toilette, and Rufino Tomayo’s Nude, to name a few. Hartman has published widely on the use of new and innovative treatment techniques developed at the DMA. Hartman received her MS degree from the Winterthur/University of Delaware program in Art Conservation. She has held positions at institutions including the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, Spain; the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery in Den Haag, Netherlands; the Yale University Art Galleries in New Haven, Connecticut; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.