Frances Lennard
Frances Lennard BA DipTextCons FIIC ACR FHEA
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Frances took up the post of Senior Lecturer in Textile Conservation at Glasgow University in August 2010, where she will lead the exciting new developments in textile conservation. Prior to the TCC's closure in October 2009, Frances was a Senior Lecturer at the Centre; she was its head of Studies and Research and was also Programme Leader for the MA Textile Conservation.
Frances took her first degree in History at the University of Warwick, then studied at the Textile Conservation Centre for the postgraduate Diploma in Textile Conservation. She worked in the Conservation Services section of the TCC for five years finishing as a Deputy Head, General Conservation. She then spent eleven years working as a freelance textile conservator in Somerset, in partnership with Fiona Hutton, working on textiles for a wide variety of clients throughout the south-west and further afield. During this time she maintained links with the TCC as a lecturer and external examiner. She was also involved in the Textile Section of the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation (UKIC): she was the Chair for three years and represented the Section on the UKIC Council. Frances returned to work at the TCC in 2001 and took on the role of Programme Leader of the MA Textile Conservation until the TCC’s closure in 2009. Since October 2009 she has been a Visiting Research Fellow in the University of Southampton’s School of Humanities. She is an Assessor for the Professional Accreditation of Conservator-Restorers scheme for the Institute of Conservation and is on the editorial board of IIC’s Reviews in Conservation.
Research Interests
Frances’ research focuses on conservation treatment and she is particularly interested in the treatment of woven tapestry and painted textiles.
Frances co-edited Tapestry Conservation: Principles and Practice with Maria Hayward (Elsevier 2006). She led a a highly successful cross-disciplinary research project into the non-destructive monitoring of tapestries with Dinah Eastop from the TCC and colleagues from the School of Engineering Sciences at the University of Southampton. She was the Principal Investigator of an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project investigating the use of two techniques: digital image correlation and optical fibre sensors.
Frances is also interested in the re-evaluation of treatments and has carried out research into previous treatments of trade union banners. The donation of a damaged artwork by Robert Rauschenberg to the TCC sparked research into the treatment of modern textile artworks, and the significance of the artist’s intent.
Most recently Frances co-edited Textile Conservation: Advances in Practice with Patricia Ewer; published by Elsevier in spring 2010, this important volume illustrates how the role of the textile conservator has developed over the past thirty years.
