About me
Tony Sigel is an independent conservator specializing in the treatment and study of objects, sculpture and archaeological material. He spent thirty years at the Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard Art Museums as senior conservator of objects and sculpture, leaving in 2022. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, apprentice-trained at the Art Institute Museum before leaving for Harvard. He worked for five summers as at the Harvard/ Cornell archaeological excavations at Sardis, Turkey, most recently in 2015, as supervising conservator. He has published, lectured and taught widely on conservation practice and technical art history topics at Harvard, the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and elsewhere. His training as a sculptor led to his technical study and publication of Bernini and other Baroque terracotta models, first in the Harvard Art Museums, then other collections world-wide. In 2004 he was awarded the Rome Prize, spending a year as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He co-curated the 2012-13 exhibition of Bernini’s terracotta sculpture, Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Kimbell Museum of Art, and was co-author of the catalog. He was appointed Robert Lehman visiting professor at Villa I Tatti, Florence, studying the techniques of Renaissance terracotta models in September, 2016, and was the AIC OSG assistant, program and group chair in 2015-17, and has co-organized the “Mistakes” session at the AIC annual meeting. He was involved in the planning and technical study of the terracotta models of Antonia Canova for Canova: Sketching in Clay, currently at the National Gallery of Art, and opening November 2023 at the Art Institute of Chicago. A Getty Scholar in 2023, he continues to work on other independent study, publication, and treatment projects.
