Staff Profile
Research Curator, Conservation and Technical Study Programs, Director of Summer Institute for Technical Studies in Art
francesca_bewer@harvard.edu / 617-495-1643
Ph.D., Institute of Archaeology, University College, London
M.Phil., Warburg Institute, University of London
B.A., New York University
Francesca Bewer serves as liaison between the Division of Academic and Public Programs and the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. She develops and heads the public and academic programs for the Materials Lab; directs the Summer Institute for Technical Studies in Art; assists with conservation-related interpretation in the museums; teaches; and undertakes art-technical research. An expert in the technical study of bronzes and on the history of conservation, she has published extensively on European bronze sculpture of the 16th through 18th centuries. Bewer is the author of A Laboratory for Art. Harvard’s Fogg Museum and the Emergence of Conservation in America, 1900–1950 (2010) and co-editor of The Explicit Material: Inquiries on the Intersection of Curatorial and Conservation Cultures (2019). She is a founding member of the Copper Alloy Sculpture Techniques and history: International iNterdisciplinary Group (CAST:ING), which has been collaborating with Getty Publications on a set of guidelines for best practices in technical examination of bronze sculpture, which will be available online in 2025. She was awarded the 2012 College Art Association/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation.
Recent Publications
With Lou Jones, “Death Row: Without Glass,” Index magazine, January 13, 2022.
“Experiments in a Teaching Museum: The Fogg’s ‘Laboratory for Art.’” In Histories of Conservation and Art History in Modern Europe, ed. Sven Dupré and Jenny Boulboullé. New York and London: Routledge, 2022.
Fritz Horstman and Francesca G. Bewer. “Returning to Materiestudien: Workshops in the Materials Lab.” In Object Lessons: The Bauhaus and Harvard, ed. Laura Muir. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Art Museums, 2021.
“Lost Wax Casting.” In Finding Lost Wax: The Disappearance and Recovery of an Ancient Casting Technique and the Experiments of Medardo Rosso, ed. Sharon Hecker. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Hanna B. Hölling, Francesca G. Bewer, and Katharina Ammann. “Introduction: Material Encounters.” In The Explicit Material: Inquiries on the Intersection of Curatorial and Conservation Cultures, ed. Hanna Hölling, Francesca G. Bewer, Katharina Ammann, 1–14. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019.
Theresa Hensick, Anthony Sigel, Henry Lie, Narayan Khandekar, Kate Smith, Francesca G. Bewer, Angela Chang et al. “Protection and Relocation of Frescoes during Construction at the Harvard Art Museums.” In Subliming Surfaces: Volatile Binding Media in Heritage Conservation, ed. Christina Rozeik, 141–52. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Museums, 2018.
Manon Castelle, David Bourgarit, and Francesca G. Bewer. “The Lasagna Technique for Casting Large 16th c. French Bronzes: Looking for Origins.” In Cuivre, bronzes et laitons médiévaux: Histoire, archéologie et archéométrie des productions en laiton, bronze et autres alliages à base de cuivre dans l’Europe médiévale (12e-16e siècles)/Medieval Copper, Bronze and Brass: History, Archaeology and Archaeometry of the Production of Brass, Bronze and Other Copper Alloy Objects in Medieval Europe (12th–16th centuries). Actes du colloque de Dinant et Namur, 15–17 mai 2014/Proceedings of the Symposium of Dinant and Namur, 15–17 May 2014, ed. J. Plumier and N. Thomas, 297–308. Paris: Agence wallonne du Patrimoine, 2018.
CAST:ING. “Angkorian Founders and Bronze Casting Skills: First Technical Investigation of the West Mebon Viṣṇu.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient (104) (2018): 303–42.