Bart Devolder

Bart J.C. Devolder received his M.A. in painting conservation from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium, in 2002. He held internships at the Akademia Sztuk Pieknych, Krakow, Poland, the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), Brussels, and the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Bart also received a fellowship from the Straus Center for Conservation at the Harvard University Art Museums (2003–4) and was the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Painting Conservation at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2004–7).

Bart has worked for the Kimbell Art Museum and Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, first as assistant conservator of paintings (2007–10) and later as associate conservator of paintings (2010–12). Before joining the Princeton University Art Museum as conservator of collections in the summer of 2018, he was the on-site coordinator and painting conservator for the restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck (2012–18).

Bart has studied, published, and lectured on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Fayum portraits, Early Netherlandish canvas paintings, and the representation of gold brocades in Netherlandish paintings to the methods and techniques of Cubist paintings. He is also particularly interested in the newer applications of computer sciences to the field of studying old master paintings.

Bart likes to use an understanding of the ways artworks are created as a catalyst to interact with people and students from different backgrounds and disciplines.