One of the key objectives of the Tata Trusts Art Conservation Initiative is to design, develop and implement training courses in the conservation of specific materials. These training courses were initially planned as 10-day workshops to be offered annually from 2019 onwards, with incremental advanced levels. Having lost time to the pandemic, the courses were redesigned in 2020 and offered instead as intensive 3-month training courses, followed by a one-month internship. The reformatting of the courses allowed for a more focused vision of the programme, viz., (i) to train practicing conservators up to a critical standard and produce material-specific conservation professionals, (ii) to build faculty for conservation training programmes, and (iii) to format a replicable training module that could be applied to varied materials and scaled to institutes outside of the programme in time.

Each training course is helmed by a course leader(s) who is an expert conservation practitioner in that material, and is assisted by a course anchor for its implementation and supervision. Five participants are admitted to each training course allowing for focussed and hands-on training, following which each participant must complete a one-month internship at a mutually agreed institute to apply the skills learnt and fulfil the requirements of the course. Over time, these trained conservators will add to the growing network of art conservation professionals in India. A directory of the graduating conservators is being compiled and can be accessed here.

These re-designed training courses have been implemented across our five partner institutes since 2021. Till the end of September 2022, five such training courses have been completed, with three more being planned for 2022-2023. This page enumerates all the training courses completed, giving glimpses of each of them.

1. Training Course in Conservation of Oil Paintings, held at Kolkata Institute of Art Conservation from September-November 2021
2. Training Course in Conservation-Restoration of Stone Objects and Sculptures held at Himalayan Society for Heritage and Art Conservation, Ranibagh, Uttarakhand from September-December 2021
3. Training Course in Conservation-Restoration of Paper: Prints, Drawings and Maps, held at Museum of Art and Photography, Bangalore, from March to May 2022
4. Training Course in Conservation of Natural History Specimens, held at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai from July to September 2022
5. Training Course in Conservation of Paper: Manuscripts and Miniature Paintings, held at Kolkata Institute of Art Conservation from July to September 2022
6. Training Course in Conservation of Metals, held at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai from September to November 2022
7. Training Course in Conservation and Restoration of Wooden Objects and Sculptures, held at Himalayan Society for Heritage and Art Conservation, Ranibagh, Uttarakhand from September to December 2022
8. Training Course in Conservation of Wall Paintings (module 1), held at Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur from January to March 2023.
9. Training Course in Conservation of Textiles, held at Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur from February to April 2023.