Karen giving a lecture at a textile conference

To mark this year of Karen’s centenary, we begin the publication of the regular lectures which Karen gave as principal of the Textile Conservation Centre in Hampton Court Palace between 1975 and 1986.

The introductory lecture provides us with a good flavour of Karen’s approach to the history and ethics of textile conservation. The ensuing lectures (see Appendix 2 for a complete list) provide an overview of the relationship between conservation and various materials (silk, wool, cotton, linen, etc) and techniques (weaving, dyeing, painting and printing, etc). Nearly all of these lectures are in Karen’s archive at Glasgow University and we will be able to publish them in the coming year or so. Where possible, we will include some of the slides that Karen used to illustrate the lectures. We should point out that Karen sometimes changed her lectures, which means that there are very likely different versions of these lectures in existence.

We encourage anyone with an interest or expertise in the areas covered by the lectures to contribute short introductions, which we can insert at the beginning of the relevant lecture, or to add thoughts or recollections in the comments section at the end of the lecture.

For further background reading on the lecture notes please see this blog post.