Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Chemical: The colorful chemistry of artists’ pigments

Speakers: Dr. Greg Smith

The artist’s search for color has led to a rainbow palette of hues acquired from some of the oddest places. Plants, animals, and minerals have all been utilized historically as sources of pigments and dyes. Dr. Gregory Smith, Newfields’ senior conservation scientist, will use some ‘colorful language’ in telling fascinating stories surrounding the discovery of important artists’ colors, highlighting how these fascinating chemicals have appeared in laboratory investigations ranging from Monet paintings to cow urine!

Gregory Dale Smith received a B.S. degree from Centre College of Kentucky in anthropology/sociology and chemistry before pursuing graduate studies at Duke University as an NSF graduate fellow in time-domain vibrational spectroscopy and archaeological fieldwork in Israel’s Galilee region. His postgraduate training included investigations of pigment degradation processes and palette studies of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library and the V & A Museum in London, the development of synchrotron infrared microscopy facilities at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven, and researching cleaning issues related to artists’ acrylic emulsion paints at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In 2004, Dr. Smith joined the faculty of the conservation training program at SUNY Buffalo State College as the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Conservation Science. In 2010 Dr. Smith became the Otto N. Frenzel III Senior Conservation Scientist at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields where he constructed and now operates a state-of-the-art research facility to study and preserve the museum’s encyclopedic collection. In 2018, Dr. Smith was selected to receive the AIC’s national award for conservation advocacy for his work in public lecturing and curating exhibitions that focus on the role of Science in the Arts.

Sponsored by Betty Yan