Doctor Sandra Grantham
Nationality: United Kingdom
Year: 1997
Subject Area: Arts and Humanities
SANDRA GRANTHAM Wingate Scholarship 1997 (To investigate a new consolidation treatment to preserve gouache-type pigments on ancient Japanese painted screens.)
I gained my PhD from RCA (Royal College of Arts) in 1999 for developing a conservation consolidation method. Although the researched method was applied to Japanese screens, for which I also studied at Kyoto City University of Art in Japan, it proved valuable in many areas of conservation for a variety of materials and objects.
The research evolved from a treatment I was given at The Royal Brompton Hospital for an incurable lung disease - LAM. A small medical nebuliser could be charged with a consolidant/adhesive and the mist applied to the surface of a work of art without disturbing the fragile paint layers, thus preventing further loss. My thesis is on CDRom and the methods are now used in conservation centres worldwide.
After graduating I worked in Conservation at the V&A Museum for 2 years before retiring to Suffolk due to my health, where I still work as a freelance conservator specializing in Eastern Art.
Photograph: A medical nebuliser, originally designed for lung treatments, being used here to
fix flaking paint layers on a panel from a Japanese screen in the V&A museum