Craig Crawford, Professional Associate, AIC

Professional Practice

1999 – Present. President, Crawford Conservation, Inc. Provides museum quality easel and wall painting conservation services throughout the south to institutions and private collectors. We are dedicated to educating clients about the condition and care of their works of art through detailed examination reports and verbal consultation. Treatment options are focused on the long term preservation through the use of stable reversible materials.

Our clients include: Greenville County Museum of Art (Greenville, SC), Clemson University (Clemson, SC), Central Baptist Church (Charleston, SC), Columbia Museum of Art (Columbia, SC), South Carolina State Museum (Columbia, SC), South Carolina Governor’s Mansion (Columbia, SC), South Carolina Arts Commission (Columbia, SC), Furman University (Greenville, SC), University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC), Converse College (Spartanburg, SC), The Johnson Collection of Southern Art, (Spartanburg, SC), Avery Center (Charleston, SC), Swanee The University of the South (Swanee, TN), Huntsville Museum of Art (Huntsville, AL), Black Mountain College + Arts Center (Ashville, NC), North Carolina State Capitol (Raleigh, NC), the Bechtler Museum of Art (Charlotte, NC), Sacred Heart Church (Baton Rouge, LA), The Historic New Orleans Collection (New Orleans, LA), Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans, LA), Louisiana State Museum (New Orleans, LA), Louisiana Governor’s Mansion (Baton Rouge, LA), Louisiana National Guard Museum (New Orleans, LA), New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation (New Orleans, LA), and Saint Joseph Abby (Covington, LA).  

In 2012 Crawford Conservation, Inc. was contracted by Cunningham Adams fine Art Conservation to be part of a team of conservators to conserve the wall paintings in the Brumidi Corridors of the United States Capitol over the next five years.

Crawford works with pre-program students through independent studies to help them develop experience and awareness for the field of conservation. He has also participated in a shadowing program for high school students. Crawford has volunteered on the Board of Directors and Advocates with  the Historic Columbia Foundation, and served on the advisory board for Charlotte Area Transit for public art.

Crawford is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

Professional Experience

Associate Painting Conservator, Cunningham-Adams Fine Art Conservation, July 1997 to April 1999.  Crawford was involved in numerous wall painting conservation projects. Notable projects include the treatment of a large section of the Brumidi Corridors in the United States Capitol painted by Constantino Brumidi in the technique of Lime wash fresco.  Crawford worked with George Adams and Laurie Timms on the consolidation of both friable plaster and areas of mortar separation.  He was also involved in the conservation of wall paintings in the Ario Rios building in Washington D.C., The conservation of wall paintings in the Senate Appropriations room at the United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., wall papers at Brazilian Embassy, Washington, D.C., and in the conservation of the Apse ceiling in St. Joseph Abbey, Covington, La. painted by Dom Gregory Dewitt.

Contract Paintings Conservator, James Hamm, Professor of painting conservation, Buffalo State College, Winter 1996.  Crawford was involved in all aspects of the treatment of sixteen large paintings on canvas by Alex Fournier from the Roy Croft Inn in East Aurora N.Y. The treatment included surface grime removal, tear mending, canvas inserts, stretcher repair, strip lining, restretching, varnishing, filling, and inpainting.

Associate Painting Conservator, Olin Conservation, Inc., 1994 to 1997.  Crawford was involved in the treatment of both easel paintings and wall paintings. Notable projects included the treatment of 46 oil on plaster wall paintings by Allen Houser, Velino Herrara, Gerald Nailor, and Woodrow Crumbo in the penthouse of the United States Department of the Interior, Ben Shahn’s Social Security murals at the Wilbur Cohen Building in Washington D.C., and an 800 square foot painting on canvas in the children’s reading room of the Mount Pleasant Library in Washington D.C. painted by Aurelius Battaglia.

Professional Education and Training

Apprentice to Mr. Charles Olin, Olin Conservation, Inc., 1989 to 1994. Mr. Olin is the former head of Painting Conservation at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.  Crawford was involved in the conservation of works of art by some of the most prominent painters throughout history in both private and public collections including Lucas Cranack the Elder, Henri Rousseau, Gerard TerBorch, Charles Wilson Peale, Hans Hoffman, Lee Krasner, Chuck Close and numerous anonymous early American itinerant portrait and landscape painters.  The apprenticeship focused on conservation theory and problem solving with a strong focus on the examination of paintings balanced by a strong emphasis on conservation treatments.

Completed the International Academic Program, Chemistry for Conservators Course, 1997.

Tear Repair Workshop, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 2003.

Received B.F.A. with emphasis on painting from the University of South Carolina, Columbia SC, 1987.

Professional Affiliations

Professional Associate, American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works

Lectures and Presentations

SC State Park Service, Redcliffe Plantation:  The conservation of a painting in the school of Georges de La Tour that is part of the collection at the Plantation.

South Carolina Federation of Museums Conference:  “The Care of Paintings,” “What is Conservation?”

South Carolina State Museum:  “Selected Conservation Treatments in the Museums Collection”.

Morris Museum, Augusta, GA:  “The Examination of Paintings”.

University of South Carolina Caroliniana Library:  “The Conservation of the portrait of Jonathan Maxey”.

The South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts:  “Intro to the Field of Conservation”.

Columbia Museum of Art:” Looking for Clues, Discovering the Hidden Life of a Painting”.

Crawford Conservation, Inc., Studio Lecture presented to Columbia Museum of Art docents, April 2008.  Conservation of painting titled “The Two Sisters” by Thomas Sully.

Crawford Conservation, Inc., Studio Lecture,” Intro to Conservation” presented to museum studies students at South Carolina State College.

Awards

Griffin Award by The Preservation Society of Ashville and Buncomb County for conservation of Jean Charlot frescos for Black Mountain College + Arts Center (2021)

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