Hybrid Lecture
Speaker: Scott Fulton, Conservator
Registration via Zoom is required for both onsite and online attendees
In person attendance is free with regular museum admission.
How were the world-renowned Blaschka Glass Flowers made over a fifty-year period? How are they maintained in 2023? Join Glass Flowers Conservator Scott Fulton for a close-up look at the science, artistry, and conservation of these botanical wonders. Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, father and son, continually experimented with materials and methods that pushed the boundaries of glassworking. Decades later, their innovations still present unique conservation challenges. Scott Fulton will highlight details of the Blaschkas’ techniques—including recent findings—and discuss the technical innovations he uses to conserve the prized Glass Flowers.
Free with regular museum admission.
Visit the related exhibit in the Glass Flower Gallery: From the Hands of the Makers.
Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage. Parking passes are provided at the garage one hour before the event.
About the Speaker
Since receiving his Master of Art Conservation (MAC) degree in 1988 at the Queen’s University Art Conservation Program, Kingston, Ontario, Scott Fulton has worked at the museums of science and culture at Harvard University. He began at the Peabody Museum as objects conservator working with the collections team to open the new Hall of the North American Indian. He was also a key member of two Harvard-associated conservation delegations to share conservation theory and practice with counterparts in the People’s Republic of China and in Copan, Honduras. Fulton’s experience and working knowledge of complex material cultures grew after several seasons engaged in the treatment of the Peabody’s collections of ethnographic and archaeological materials. As consultant, he advised on the long-term care of the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants (the Glass Flowers), and he collaborated with conservators at the Corning Museum of Glass where he learned firsthand about the challenges of working with Blaschka glass models.
In 2015, Fulton accepted a newly created position of Conservator for the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, under the direction of the Harvard University Herbaria. With the creation of a dedicated conservation treatment program, and in partnership with conservation scientists at the Harvard Art Museums and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Fulton highlighted his agenda with research focused on the evolution of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka’s methods and the raw materials they used in their Dresden lampworking studio from 1886 to 1936. Fulton’s research on the adverse behavior of Blaschka glass to fluctuating environmental changes over time, signaled the need to modify strategies in treatment and storage of the Glass Flowers.
LOCATION:Zoom or Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20230325T180000Z DTEND:20230325T190000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR