The Graphic Arts and Books speciality comprises two workshops, one devoted to the restoration of drawings, watercolours, prints, pastels, and posters, the other to bound works, manuscripts or printed works on paper or parchment. Students in these two specialities take joint courses, followed by courses specific to the speciality of their choice.
The Graphic Arts and Book workshop is supervised by Valérie Lee and Thierry Aubry.
Valérie Lee is responsible for the speciality, and teaches and coordinates the teaching of conservation-restoration of the graphic arts. She also works as a freelance conservator for museums in France and abroad.
Thierry Aubry is the workshop assistant and teaches and coordinates the teaching of book conservation-restoration. He is head of the conservation-restoration workshop at the Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg.
Work in workshop
The objects on which the students work are extremely varied, in terms of materials and techniques, as well as formats and types of document. However, they are all sensitive to light, to variations in relative humidity, to micro-organisms and insects, and to acidity, whether from the environment or from the works themselves (iron gall inks, papers mechanically manufactured from wood, rosin size, etc.).
Conservation-restoration is taught firstly through exercises in observation and description (condition reporting), followed by interpretation (diagnosis, prognosis), and then by the implementation of treatments on objects and documents entrusted to the department by public institutions.
Students thus work in a professional context, in their relation with the institution and the person responsible for the object.
From left to right:
Elie, Pauline, "Dossier de restauration, Bataille du Pont de Milvius, Johannes Volpato", Médiathèque numérique de l'Inp, https://mediatheque-numerique.inp.fr/documentation-oeuvres/rapports-res…
Rossato, Sophie, "Dossier de traitement. MS. 8 : SuperSecundo Libro Sententiarum", Médiathèque numérique de l'Inp, https://mediatheque-numerique.inp.fr/documentation-oeuvres/rapports-res…
Internships and field-schools
During their 3rd year, student conservators-restorers have a 3-month internship in France at a public institution, a regional or local studio, a service with national competence or with an independent restorer. In their 4th year, they add to their professional experience with a 22-week practical internship in an institutional or private restoration studio abroad.
This is an opportunity for them to put their knowledge into practice, to acquire new skills and build a professional network while discovering other methods and considerations.
At the same time, the students attend field-schools.
From their first year of training, students in conservation-restoration participate in preventive conservation projects. Over the next four years, they interact in field-schools in France and abroad thus giving them a first hands-on experience under the supervision of the coordinators of each of the specialties.
This unique pedagogical approach received the EU Cultural Heritage Prize / Europa Nostra Award in 2018.
Since 1991, the Institut national du patrimoine has held 233 field schools in France and abroad, at major institutions such as the Louvre, the Sorbonne and the Petit Palais, as well as in the provinces, such as in Lourdes, Dijon and Strasbourg, and outside France, in the Lebanon, Italy, Senegal, Albania, India and China.
Master's thesis
The fifth year is the degree year, during which the student is placed in a professional situation and manages a conservation-restoration project independently under the guidance of a thesis director, the head of the workshop, their assistant or an external advisor.
