Professor Colin Pearson: ‘one of the most versatile and capable conservators of his generation’^†

† Colin Pearson received the 2003 ICCROM Award, where he was praised as ‘clearly among the most versatile and capable conservators of his generation. […] His informal manner, his ability to motivate and inspire, have made him a mentor and colleague to so many of those practicing conservation today’. See https://www.iccrom.org/news/colin-pearson-1941-2016. Viewed 1 March 2018.

Abstract

Professor Colin Pearson played a transformative role in cultural materials conservation in Australia. As a founding member of the AICCM, the first Editor of its peer-reviewed journal, and the Head and Professor of the first tertiary conservation education program in Australia, Colin Pearson influenced the lives and careers of many conservators across Australia and further afield. This paper considers his extraordinary contributions, with a particular focus on conservation education, highlighting his many achievements and his legacy to the discipline and to the profession.

Keywords:

• Colin Pearson
• gedenkshrift
• cultural materials conservation
• pedagogy
• AICCM

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge Jan Lyall’s long-term commitment to the National Library of Australia’s oral history program, which allows us to continue to hear Colin speaking in his own modest way about his experiences of building the conservation profession in Australia. Passages from my unpublished PhD thesis, Scott, M 2016 Tradition and Innovation: Building the Conservation Discipline in Australia have been incorporated into this article, specifically paragraphs in the following sections – Establishing the Context, Teaching and Learning Conservation, The View From Within, and Accepting the Challenge.

Author biography

Dr Marcelle Scott continues to research conservation pedagogy with diverse community groups. She co-ordinated the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation program at the University of Melbourne from 2004 until 2012. She is a Professional Member of the AICCM, and a Fellow of the IIC. In 2013 she was inducted into the AICCM Hall of Fame, receiving the AICCM Medal, and in 2015 she was particularly honoured to receive the AICCM Award for Outstanding Research in Materials Conservation, an award initiated and sponsored by Colin Pearson.

ORCID

Marcelle Scott http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0869-0678

Notes

† Colin Pearson received the 2003 ICCROM Award, where he was praised as ‘clearly among the most versatile and capable conservators of his generation. […] His informal manner, his ability to motivate and inspire, have made him a mentor and colleague to so many of those practicing conservation today’. See https://www.iccrom.org/news/colin-pearson-1941-2016. Viewed 1 March 2018.

1 While widely referred to as the ‘Pigott Report’, after the Committee Chairman, Peter Pigott, as a government report it would most correctly cited as Museums in Australia 1975, however, this leads to confusion when also citing the date of events associated with the inquiry, and hence the now commonly used title of the report is used throughout this paper.

2 Day here is referring to the situation in the UK resulting from the closure of the Textile Conservation Centre, at the University of Southampton, an internationally recognised leader in the field. By any metric it could be deemed prestigious, yet the Centre was closed in 2009. It’s closure and that of the Canberra program demonstrate that departmental closures can occur for various reasons, despite ‘lobbying at high level and widespread protest’ (Greenwood 2011, p. 87) and the ‘many people who stopped [Vice-Chancellor Roger Dean] in the street and said it was a bad idea’ (Warden 2008).