Julie Wolfe has a B.F.A. in art history from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. She graduated in 1997 with an M.A. from Buffalo State College specializing in objects conservation. She obtained advanced training in conservation at the Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard University Art Museums. She is currently an Associate Conservator at The J. Paul Getty Museum in Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation. She has co-authored a book called “Conserving Outdoor Sculpture: The Stark Collection at the Getty Center” (2010) and has been heavily involved in outdoor sculpture work at the Museum. Her research on painted outdoor sculpture has focused on Roy Lichtenstein’s works and his painting systems on aluminum.
The Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts Conservation at the J. Paul Getty Museum got involved with INCCA in 2005 when we acquired the Fran and Ray Stark sculpture collection. My colleague Katrina Posner and I dove into an intense two-year project preparing the collection for treatment and installation. It is thanks to Katrina – the departmental member - who spearheaded the recent belated push to put our research into the INCCA database. The flood of records we uploaded pertains to the outdoor sculpture from the Stark collection, which includes mostly American and British artists with some Italian, French, Swiss, Belgian and Spanish included as well.
The INCCA Database wasn’t that helpful to us in 2005 - there really wasn’t any information about the artists we were researching. However, as that was the case, we were even more motivated to compile our research on the collection and add to what we considered an incredible database with great potential. We hope that the information will be helpful, and that our experience can motivate others to take the time to upload. We also look forward to future communications about our work.
We found uploading to be very straightforward. We pretty much compiled the metadata for each object in the collection via a Word document, and then could easily cut and paste into the database format. We also made it the responsibility of our summer intern, an undergraduate student, to prepare the information for easy upload. Now that we have done it, we realize it should be easy to make it part of our regular duty and make it a routine to continue to add to the INCCA Database. Stay tuned, our next set of uploads will be in regards to a recent exhibition at the Getty called Pacific Standard Time. The seminal exhibition was the culmination of many years of work between the Getty Foundation and the Getty Research Institute whose initiative was to recover historical records of artistic innovations in Southern California after World War II.
Photo: Julie Wolfe on the left, Katrina Posner on the right.