Greater Houston Section

Science Cafe - Van Gogh at Work: His Materials and Techniques

  • 23 Mar 2019
  • 3:00 PM
  • Brown Auditorium Theater, The Caroline Wiess Law Building, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet, Houston, TX 77005

Van Gogh at Work: His Materials and Techniques

David Bomford, Chair, Department of Conservation, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston


Saturday, March 23, 2019

3:00 PM

Brown Auditorium Theater, The Caroline Wiess Law Building

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

1001 Bissonnet, Houston, TX 77005


Admission to this lecture is free. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis, and is limited to 350. The auditorium doors will open 30 minutes before the start of the lecture.


A reception sponsored by the Greater Houston Section of the American Chemical Society will follow in the Museum’s Café, lower level, The Audrey Jones Beck Building.

Parking information is available at https://www.mfah.org/visit/parking/

To purchase tickets to see the exhibition Vincent van Gogh: His Life in Art, before or after the lecture, please click here, or stop by an admissions desk at the Museum. General Museum Admission provides access to any of the Museum’s non-ticketed exhibitions and collection. General Museum Admission is always free for Museum members, and Members also receive ‘free tickets’ to ticketed exhibitions. Please ask at any Museum admissions desk for more information or details.


About the Speaker:


Dr. David Bomford arrived at the MFAH in 2012. He has been a distinguished figure in conservation for more than forty years, as senior restorer at the National Gallery, London, and as secretary general of the International Institute for Conservation. During his career at the National Gallery, he worked with many of the great masterworks of Western art, including Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Peter Paul Rubens’ Samson and Delilah, Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian and numerous Rembrandts.

Dr. Bomford has served on advisory committees for restoration projects in The Netherlands, including that for Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, and was a member of Rembrandt advisory committees at the Statens Museum, Copenhagen, and the Louvre.

Most recently, Dr. Bomford was associate director for collections at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and served as acting director of the Getty Museum from 2010 to 2012. Dr. Bomford has published extensively since the mid-1970s, and has taught and lectured widely.

He received his B.Sc in pure chemistry and his M.Sc in organometallic chemistry from the University of Sussex, U.K. In 2016, the University of Sussex named him a Doctor of the University in honor of his extensive contributions to the field of art conservation.

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