In anticipation of our upcoming AIC-CAC 2026 Meeting in Montreal, we invite you to kickstart your Annual Meeting with an online lecture and discussion with Leib Celnik, doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins University's Department of History of Science and Technology.
Celnik will analyze conservation practices during the mid-twentieth century, a period when major associations and graduate programs emerged, shaping and professionalizing the field in both countries. Celnik's research is informed by archival records, publications, and oral histories from both public and private conservation institutions, museums, and degree programs in both countries, focusing on the field's development to understand how and why art conservation adopted scientific methods and rhetoric.
Celnik holds a bachelor's degree in the history of science and art history from Harvard University and an MPhil in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on the history of art conservation, with his master's dissertation on the importation of synthetic dyes used in eighteenth-century Japanese woodblock prints and his undergraduate thesis on the history of analyses of Greco-Roman marble sculpture. Leib is broadly interested in the history of the physical sciences, museum studies, and material culture studies. He is currently researching a dissertation that explores the history of art conservation across North America and Europe, focusing on how and why scientific methods and language were increasingly integrated into art conservation during the twentieth century. Celnik has collaborated with institutions such as the Harvard Art Museums, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Baltimore Museum of Art in areas of education, research, and curation.
This lecture will be moderated by AIC Vice President Abed Haddad, Assistant Conservation Scientist at the Museum of Modern Art.
This free, online lecture will take place on April 17, 2026, at 12 pm EST and is open to all. Please use this link to register.
We hope to see you online!
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Abed Haddad
AIC Vice President (2025-2027)
Assistant Conservation Scientist
The Museum of Modern Art
New York, NY
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