About me
Matthew Skopek has served as the Melva Bucksbaum Director of Conservation at the Whitney Museum of American Art since 2023. After receiving his MA and Advanced Certificate in Conservation from Buffalo State College in 2002 he had internships at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and spent several years at the Museum of Modern Art before starting at the Whitney in 2007. During his tenure at the Whitney he has executed complicated treatments of Barkley Hendrick’s Steve, Brice Marden’s Number One, and Franz Kline’s Mahoning among other paintings. He has conducted research on the work of Robert Motherwell and Roy Lichtenstein as well as the early work of Carmen Herrera and Robert Rauschenberg. His publications include his research on Carmen Herrera, a discussion of the challenges of exhibition parameters when working with living artists, and a forthcoming essay in the first volume of the Robert Rauschenberg catalogue raisonné. Additionally, in 2023 he co-organized a 2-week long “Getty Conserving Canvas” symposium, hosted in conjunction with MoMA and the Harvard Art Museums, that focused on the unique problems posed by works on cotton duck. Within the Whitney Matt leads the museum's Replication Committee and works with other departments across the institution on issues pertaining to the environment, loans, exhibitions, and overall collection care. As a contributor to ADP he has interviewed Salman Toor, Julie Mehretu, Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith, Rogelio Báez Vega and Gamaliel Rodriguez.
