Garman Art Conservation Alumna Awarded Rome Prize, Headed to Italy

In a fast-paced world, “time and space to think and work” are a luxury. The Rome Prize, presented by the American Academy in Rome, grants this luxury annually to a select group of artists, writers, and scholars. This year, Buffalo State alumna Katherine L. Beaty, ’05, was named one of 31 Rome Prize fellows from more than 1,000 applicants.

Beaty, who holds a master of arts and certificate of advanced study in book and paper conservation from Buffalo State University’s Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department, was awarded the Suzanne Deal Booth Rome Prize for Historic Preservation and Conservation. She will receive a stipend, workspace, and room and board at the academy’s 11-acre campus in Rome, Italy, for 10 months, beginning in September. In that time, Beaty will work on her project, A Technical Study of Italian Archival Bookbindings.

“I'm excited,” said Beaty, book conservator for special collections at Harvard University’s Weissman Preservation Center. “Ever since I started working on Italian books and doing research and workshops on the structure, I wanted to do more. Going to the source and seeing these books in person is the next step. In addition to surveying actual archival books, I’ll be recreating the bindings and making historic similes in the studio. It’s in that process of creating that I can really understand how and why things were made a certain way.”

“It’s a privilege to be able to further your research, a project you’ve had on the back burner,” said Meredeth Lavelle, program manager of Buffalo State’s Garman Art Conservation Department, who added that a few other art conservation alumni, as well as retired faculty member Jonathan Thornton, have been honored with the Rome Prize in the past. “It’s one of those career highlights. Katherine is so deserving.”

Like the Rome Prize, admission to the Garman art conservation program—one of only four such programs in the country—is also highly competitive; annually, the department receives more than 100 applicants for 10 spots. This is to balance the demand in a small field, said Lavelle, so graduates are positioned for success.

“Our students are highly skilled when they come into the program,” she said. “They must have a scientific background, appreciation for art, studio art skills, and dexterity. While they’re here, they get experience in all different areas of conservation. Our faculty is fully committed to making sure they’re the best conservation professionals they can be, and our graduates get jobs right away.”

Indeed, after completing her third-year internship at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and graduating from Buffalo State, Beaty landed a position as a project conservator at Duke University for one year before completing a fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library. During that fellowship, she applied for her current position at Harvard, which she has now held for 16 and a half years.

“The collections here are phenomenal, and I get to work on exquisite items,” she said. “It’s an ideal place for a book conservator who wants to do complex treatments on special collection materials.”

Beaty said Buffalo State’s multidisciplinary approach has served her well throughout her career. “We have books, paintings, books with paintings, and all sorts of objects,” she said. “Books themselves are complicated objects with different materials. It’s been hugely beneficial to me to have that broad background.”

While she values her knowledge of a range of materials, Beaty said, books are her favorite. 

“Because they’re functional objects, you not only have to repair the pages and outside, but they have to be usable,” she said. “I really like that challenge.”

Header image by Jon Chase, Harvard University staff photographer; headshot courtesy of Katherine Beaty.