Preservation and Healing: An Art Conservator's Journey
Event Detail
6pm – Doors open
6:30pm – Rosa Lowinger’s presentation
7:30 to 8pm – Book signing
Based on her just-published memoir, DWELL TIME: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair, conservator Rosa Lowinger will present on her work preserving historic sites. From mosaics, murals, and decorative cast stone to terracotta and ironwork, Lowinger will show how repairing the key elements of 20th-century architecture serves as a metaphor for personal healing after loss, particularly the loss of ones home. Key conservation projects carried out by Lowinger—including Vizcaya Museum & Gardens will be shown to illustrate her vast portfolio of work.
Rosa Lowinger is a Cuban-born American art conservator and founder of RLA Conservation of Art + Architecture LLC, the U.S.’s largest woman-owned materials conservation practice. She is also a published author, and her most recent book DWELL TIME: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair (Rowhouse, 2023) interweaves the materials and science of her work with the story of her Jewish Cuban family and their state of double exile: from Eastern Europe in the 1920s and then Cuba in 1961. Rosa’s academic and professional distinctions include the 2008-09 Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, where she researched the history of vandalism, graffiti, and street art; and Fellow status in the American Institute for Conservation and the Association for Preservation Technology. She holds a M.A. in Art History and Conservation from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, and this fall she will be the Judith Praska Distinguished professor of Conservation at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts.