San Francisco Ceramic Circle

April 13th, 2006 Meeting

Fakes, Copies and Question Marks

Donna Strahan

Head of Conservation, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

The Thursday, April 13th meeting of the San Francisco Ceramic Circle will be held in the Koret Theater at the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT THE USUAL LOCATION FOR SFCC MEETINGS. Enter from the B1 level of the Parking Garage from 7.30pm. The lecture will start at 8.00pm.

About the lecture:

The lecture will examine the nature of authenticity of art objects and how conservators analyze and evaluate the museum's collection. After giving a brief history of forgery different analytical methods will be discussed with illustrated examples. The focus of the talk will be on ceramics but other materials will also be included.

About our speaker:

Donna Strahan has just been appointed Conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

She has been Head of Conservation at the Asian Art Museum San Francisco for the past six years. Prior to joining the Asian Art Museum she was a senior objects conservator at the Walters Art Museum for twelve years. From 1984-1988 she was an objects conservator at the Conservation Analytical Laboratory. For the over ten years she also been the head conservator at the excavation of Troy, Turkey. She holds an MA degree in ethnographic and archaeological conservation and a BA degree in Chinese Language from George Washington University. Her current research interests include Southeast Asian sculpture and Chinese bronzes.

Future S.F.C.C. programs:

5/18/2006 Michael Sack "The Evolution of Chinoiserie on English Teawares of the Early 19th Century: Intelligent Design or Just Plain Crazy?"

SFCC 2006 Lecture program