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Dan Kushel

Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department State University of New York College at Buffalo (SUNY Buff
Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus
Buffalo, NY
Dan Kushel served on the faculty of the Buffalo State College Art Conservation Department for 34 years, from 1978, when the department was affiliated with the Cooperstown Graduate Programs and State College at Oneonta, until his retirement in 2012. During this time, he developed the department’s original one-semester technical examination and documentation course into the program’s unique two-year conservation imaging curriculum.  Offered since 1993, it now covers digital and multispectral imaging and examination techniques and digital radiography. In addition to the documentation courses, Dan co-taught the department’s paintings conservation courses through 1993. Between 1997 and 2009, he also served on the faculty of the RIT/George Eastman House Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation. Prior to teaching, Dan was on the conservation staff of the Brooklyn Museum. He earned his BA from Clark University in 1968, and an M.A. (1972) in art history from Columbia
University, where he also completed his doctoral course work. He was awarded an M.A. and Certificate of Advanced Studies in conservation from the SUNY College at Oneonta Cooperstown Graduate Programs in 1976. Dan been active in the American Institute for Conservation, most notably as a member and a Chair of the Ethics & Standards Committee during its seven-year revision of the professional Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice, and as a member of the Digital Photographic Documentation Task Force which helped guide the profession’s transition to digital technology in documentation. He is Fellow of AIC and IIC. Dan has published and lectured widely on technical examination and documentation of cultural artifacts and is a co-author of the AIC Guide to Digital Photography and Conservation Documentation. Since retirement, he has provided training in computed radiography at several museums nationwide. A first recipient of the American Institute for Conservation Caroline and Sheldon Keck Award for conservation education in 1994, he was appointed a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in 1998 and received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Exemplary Research and Scholarship in 2005. He was awarded the American Institute for Conservation Robert L. Feller Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and AIC Honorary Membership in 2018.