Maria Fredericks was the Sherman Fairchild Head of Conservation at the Morgan Library & Museum, Thaw Conservation Center, from 2018-2026. Prior to this appointment, Fredericks was the Drue Heinz Book Conservator at the Morgan, a position she held for thirteen years. She has mentored numerous graduate interns and post-graduate fellows, while also carrying out technical research and conservation treatment on treasures of the Morgan’s collection, such as the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, the Golden Gospels of Henry VIII, and an illuminated Pontifical made for Pope Leo X.
Before coming to the Morgan in 2005, Fredericks was Head of Conservation at Columbia University Libraries, where she managed the conservation program for a large network of campus libraries including Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, the C.V. Starr East Asian Library and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. She has also held positions at the Library of Congress, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the Winterthur Museum in Winterthur, Delaware. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Coptic Museum Archives in Cairo, she contributed to conservation and preservation efforts for rare manuscripts.
A graduate of Swarthmore College with a B.A. in art history, Ms. Fredericks has lectured, taught and published extensively on book conservation and historical bindings.Since 2010, she has been a Visiting Lecturer at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts Conservation Center, where she has taught graduate students specializing in rare book conservation and participated in curriculum development for a Mellon-funded initiative in Library and Archives Conservation Education (LACE).