Wendy Baker

Senior Conservator (Paintings and Polychrome Surfaces), Treatment and Collection Care – Textiles, Paintings, Polychrome Surfaces, Heritage Furniture and Wooden Objects Division

Main areas of work and/or specializations

• restoration and conservation of easel paintings (traditional, modern and contemporary), panel paintings and paintings on non-traditional supports
• invisible tear repair of paintings on canvas supports
• restoration and conservation of indoor sculpture (wood, stone)
• bulk consolidation of degraded polychrome surfaces and panel paintings
• restoration and conservation of painted heritage interiors
• training of interns

Biography

Wendy Baker earned a B.A. (Hons) in both French Literature and History from Carleton University in 1976 and graduated from the Master of Art Conservation program specializing in paintings and works of art on paper at Queen’s University in 1979. She began work as a private conservator in 1980, and for over 20 years, she assessed and treated many diverse objects and works of art, such as the following:

• paintings on canvas, wood, glass, leather and porcelain;
• fresco paintings;
• paintings on adobe;
• mural paintings;
• oversize and miniature paintings;
• small and large-scale sculpture;
• works of art on paper; and
• historical and ethnographic objects.

Wendy earned a Bachelor of Education in 1999. She joined the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) in September 2002, where she currently specializes in the treatment of paintings, polychrome surfaces and heritage interiors. Her work includes the stabilization of painted surfaces on different supports: surface cleaning, varnish and overpaint removal, structural stabilization (invisible tear repair, backing and lining paintings), consolidation of wood panels and retouching. Her research includes the investigation of methods for removal of mould from paper and canvas, and the bulk treatment of degraded wood with synthetic resins.

She has served as the President of the Canadian Association for Conservation and has been a long-time editor and co-editor of the Journal for the Canadian Association for Conservation. She assisted in the drafting of the revised Code of Ethics and Guidance for Practice of the Canadian Association of Professional Conservators, and she contributed to a chapter devoted to the choice and use of adhesives for conservation applications for paintings in CCI’s Adhesive Compendium for Conservation.