Anne Fanshaw Clapp was born November 1, 1910, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both her parents were artists, and she began painting in childhood. Ms. Clapp studied fine arts at Radcliffe College. In 1941, she enrolled in a course to prepare women to be aviation engineers' assistants, studying aerodynamics, mechanical drawing, and advanced math. She worked in the patent office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but in 1946 took a job at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University because she wanted to combine her interests in art and science. At the Fogg, Ms. Clapp worked under Richard Buck and Minna Horowitz, learning how to treat oil paintings and paintings on wood panels. Later, she worked at the Worcester Art Museum, and there she studied paper conservation with George Stout.

From 1950 to 1954, Ms. Clapp worked at the Institute of Jamaica, first establishing a conservation laboratory and then working on the problems of the preservation of paintings and works of art on paper in a tropical climate. In 1954, she returned to the United States and opened a conservation lab at Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia. She treated paintings by Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and other noted early American artists, as well as analyzed paint in the historic buildings in the park. From 1959 or 1960 until 1970, Ms. Clapp worked at the Intermuseum Conservation Association in Oberlin, Ohio, primarily treating paintings.

In 1970, Ms. Clapp came to Winterthur Museum as the Print and Paper Conservator; she retired in 1981. She cared for the museum and library collections and taught paper conservation to the fellows in the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC). The lectures for the first year students focused on preventive conservation, including the importance of proper housing and the effects of relative humidity and light on paper artifacts. The second year students documented and treated objects of all kinds, including watercolors, prints, collages, papyrus, architectural drawings, band boxes, and wallpaper. Ms. Clapp was very devoted to her students, interested in both their professional careers and their personal lives.

Ms. Clapp wrote Curatorial Care of Works of Art on Paper, which was first published in 1973. Later editions came out in 1974, 1978, and 1987. For about ten years after her retirement from her full-time position as a conservator, Ms. Clapp continued to work one day per week in the Downs collection at Winterthur, doing conservation work on manuscripts. She also taught classes in paper conservation at the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and the Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome and gave talks at various conferences. Moreover, she maintained her own private laboratory in her apartment, where she conserved paintings and paper for both individual clients and museums, working until the late 1990s. Anne Clapp died on May 11, 2000.

The papers reflect Anne Clapp's professional life, particularly her private conservation practice and her teaching. The papers include her notes about items on which she performed conservation work, including slides of some of them; correspondence with colleagues and clients; information about the class in paper conservation which she taught for several years at ICCROM; notes which she collected over the years about the history of papermaking and conservation; and catalogs and samples received from suppliers of conservation materials.

The papers are grouped according to topic, although they are not arranged in formal series. Notes, slides, and other papers dealing with conservation treatments which she performed are in Boxes 1-5. Other papers related to her business, correspondence, papers related to professional organizations, and miscellaneous notes are in Boxes 5-8. Catalogs and samples of conservation materials are in boxes 8-9. Boxes 10 and 11 contain note cards, the ones in Box 10 are about the history of papermaking, while those in Box 11 contain information on a variety of topics.

None

Gift from John Clapp, nephew of Anne Clapp.

OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION Extent: 3 cu.ft. Date range: 1950-1995 Creator: Anne F. Clapp Title: Papers Dates: 1950-1995 Call No.: Col. 589 Acc. No.: 00×132 Quantity: 11 boxes (5 linear feet) Location: 18 L 4 and 5

The Winterthur Library

The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera