Institute of Fine Arts' Kress Lecture: Dianne Dwyer Modestini
On Tuesday, April 21, 2026, Dianne Dwyer Modestini presented the annual Institute of Fine Arts' Samuel H. Kress Lecture in Conservation. Dianne is Clinical Professor Emerita at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she founded the Samuel H. Kress Program in Paintings Conservation in 1989.
See below for an excerpt and recording of the lecture.
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At My Easel: Thoughts After Fifty Years
"A restorer has a special relationship with a work of art that derives from thorough knowledge of the technical literature, some training in art history and science, and a lifetime of experience. Among the various areas of conservation, the treatment of paintings, particularly damaged Old Masters, can be especially demanding, requiring immense time, sustained focus, and critical judgement. The restorer must hang onto every bit of original information, ruthlessly edit their own work, and overcome fear, without becoming overconfident. It takes humility to accept that whatever you do, it will never be good enough. As my teacher, the late John Brealey, often said, “every picture makes a fool of you.” On the positive side, this work yields specialist knowledge of painters and schools, an understanding of the creative processes by which individual artists achieved miraculous effects with mundane materials, and a glimpse of a painting’s original appearance. If lucky, and persistent, a painting will occasionally reveal its secrets, offering insights into what makes it unique and how it relates to other works. I will discuss two paintings, both with historically unsatisfactory attributions, which, after several years of study I was ultimately able to understand using visual and technical evidence."
Dianne Dwyer Modestini is a conservator of Old Master and nineteenth-century paintings. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Barnard College, an M.A. in the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works from the Cooperstown Graduate Program at SUNY, Oneonta, and a Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from Fairfield University. She was a member of the Department of Paintings Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1974 until 1987. Dianne is Clinical Professor Emerita at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she founded the Samuel H. Kress Program in Paintings Conservation in 1989, combining the care and study of the dispersed Kress Collection with graduate training in paintings conservation.
She serves on the boards of the Roberto Longhi Foundation and NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. She has published on topics ranging from the paintings of John Kensett, the philosophy of noted paintings conservator John Brealey, works from the Kress Collection, and publications about the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, for which she also created a website. Dianne is also the author of Masterpieces, a book based on the memoirs of her late husband, the distinguished restorer Mario Modestini.
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Dianne Dwyer Modestini
Clinical Professor Emerita, Kress Program in Paintings Conservation, Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Photo courtesy of the Institute of Fine Arts