Dan Kushel

Dan Kushel has been on the faculty of the Art Conservation Department at Buffalo State College since 1978, where he now instructs in the area of technical examination and documentation. He additionally taught paintings conservation until 1993 when the examination and documentation curriculum was substantially expanded. Prior to teaching, Professor Kushel was on the conservation staff of the Brooklyn Museum. He received his M.A. and Certificate of Advanced Study in Conservation from this program while it was still located in Cooperstown and associated with the SUNY College at Oneonta. Prior to his conservation studies, Professor Kushel earned his M.A. and completed his doctoral course work in art history at Columbia University.

He has published numerous articles and lectured frequently on technical examination techniques used in the study of cultural artifacts, especially in the area of infrared imaging and radiography, and has personal interests in the area of early radiography. He was a member of the AIC Digital Photographic Documentation Task Force and is a co-author of The AIC Guide to Digital Photography and Conservation Documentation. Other selected publications include: "Digital Documentation"; "Radiographic Methods Used in the Recording of Structure and Watermarks in Historic Papers"; "Photographing Textiles"; "Surface Analysis of Nineteenth-Century Daguerreotype Plates"; "A Basic Guide to the Photography of Gilded Artifacts"; "Some Observations on Thomas Cole's 'Voyage of Life' Using Infrared Reflectography and X-radiography"; "Applications of Transmitted Infrared Radiation to the Examination of Artifacts"; and a book, Photodocumentation for Conservation: Procedural Guidelines and Photographic Concepts and Techniques. In 2005 delivered the keynote address, on the topic of conservation documentation, at the Thirty-third Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation.

Over his years on the faculty, Professor Kushel, has developed a curriculum in the technical examination and documentation of works of art, and has created documentation and imaging facilities that are unmatched by that of any other graduate-level conservation training program. Most recently, he has worked to create the Art Conservation Department’s state-of the art facilities for digital image capture and processing.

In addition to teaching in the department, Professor Kushel serves on the faculty of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation sponsored Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation at the George Eastman House in Rochester. He has also been active in the American Institute for Conservation (AIC), 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. He was twice elected to serve on the AIC Nominating Committee, and has been a member of the AIC Publications Committee.

Professor Kushel is a recipient of the AIC's Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award for outstanding performance in the education of conservation professionals (1994). His teaching has been recognized by the State University of New York through appointment to a Distinguished Teaching Professorship (1998). Most recently, Dan was honored with the Chancellor's Recognition Award for Outstanding Research and Scholarship in the Fields of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering (2005).