Christopher Clarkson - Book Conservation

Christopher Clarkson
Book Conservator

Christopher Clarkson, ARCA

London
Christopher Clarkson was first sent to a London art college at the age of thirteen, in those days the teaching was still strongly influenced by the Arts & Crafts Movement. The curriculum was dominated by painting, drawing, painting techniques & all the graphic reproductive methods. At seventeen his National Diploma was in Graphic Design – Writing and Illuminating, Letter Cutting. He entered the Royal College of Art, London (RCA), on the strength of his graphic, letter cutting, engraving & design. He swapped to ‘Fine Binding’ for his last two years & had to complete & display twelve bindings for his final diploma show (Figs 1, 2 & 3).

On graduating with an ARCA in 1964, Chris Clarkson worked on the restoration of early printed books and manuscripts at Douglas Cockerell & Son (Fig 4), Cambridge, run by Sydney M. Cockerell (Fig 5), and later with Roger Powell (Fig 6), Froxfield. He also taught graphic design, wood engraving, writing and illuminating, letter cutting and ‘fine’ bookbinding to diploma level at several leading art colleges.

Fig 4: Douglas Cockerell

Fig 5: Sidney (Sandy) Cockerell

Fig 6: Roger Powell

Florence
He was sent to Florence to join the English rescue team in November 1966 after the devastating flood had inundated the many libraries and archives of the City (Fig 8). Millions of books had suffered damage from water, mud, sewerage and oil. There he joined Roger Powell, Peter Waters, Anthony Cains and Dorothy Cumpstey. The team was directed to begin salvage efforts of the collections at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF), devising a treatment protocol as well as supervising and teaching volunteers and students basic treatment procedures. The Director, Dr. Casamassima, arranged the use of Forte di Belvedere for sorting and selecting books, and the Florence Railway Power Station to wash and dry books. There Anthony Cains had set-up makeshift workstations with washbasins and drying lines so as to treat items returning from being force dried in granaries &/or tobacco kilns. On arrival Chris was put in charge of the many volunteers at the Power Station (Fig 9).

By Easter 1967 temporary workshops had been established on the main entrance floor of the BNCF (Figs 10 & 11):

Fig 10

Fig 11

After the books had returned from forced drying, the team would continue detailing their damage and specify treatment (Fig 12), then rewrap with insecticidal paper. It was during this period that Chris started to note the strengths and weaknesses of the various types of binding structures and began questioning why many limp vellum binding structures had survived intact (Fig 13), when other binding types had suffered greatly. Chris began to develop methods of limp vellum binding based on late medieval principles (Figs 14, 15 & 16). As time passed and work permitted, Chris also began to train selected volunteers and binding staff in the application of approaches to book restoration based on those being established in painting conservation

Froxfield
He was in Florence when Frazer Poole (Fig 22). invited him, Peter Waters and Don Etherington to help set-up a new Preservation Department at The Library of Congress, Washington DC. He returned to England to sort his affairs, marry Oonagh and rebind for the BNCF many small format books sent to Roger Powell's studio for repair, Chris rebound many in his various styles of limp and semi-limp vellum binding (Fig 17). It was over the Christmas of 1971, just before Chris left with his wife for America, that Roger Hill, a filmmaker who taught at the Royal College of Art, recorded Chris's binding methods on film.

Washington D.C.
Chris's appointment was to develop, within the Preservation Department, a section devoted to the conservation and treatment of the rare book and special collection material within the Library. Under Frazer and Peter, Don and Chris were involved in designing the first library and archive preservation and treatment programmes. Among the first of these programmes in which Chris was particularly involved and used in the training of his young staff were:-

A re-housing project for the Law Library which involved devising the construction of tailored boxes and temporary wrappers. Because this was a phasing operation the term ‘phase box’ was coined (Fig 18).
For the Orientalia Department's collection of Persian binding covers, which lacked text-blocks, ‘flip flop’ boxes were designed to accommodate the fragile and extremely ornate covers. The box design and construction enabled the exterior of a cover to be viewed, and, by closing and reversing the box, the interior face; without the reader having to touch the fragile binding (Fig 19).
With Don's help contacts with suppliers and manufacturers were established and close collaboration achieved the higher standards acceptable for conservation purposes, an example of which was the first archival boxboards. Early collaboration with the young papermaking couple Kathryn and Howard Clark of ‘Twinrocker’, resulted in the development of a stronger and more sympathetic paper for endleaves. Later we worked with Timothy Barrett, on his return from Japan, to obtain repair papers and also to develop a cover paper suitable for limp and semi-limp bindings. Other aims were to improve bookcloth and leather quality.
In late 1972 the Exhibition Department at the Library approached Chris with the problem of fitting eighty books from the Rosenwald Collection into the only available cases (Fig 20). In response to this challenge and the preservation teams' concern about the potential damage to books from the display methods then in use, various innovations were made, which are now standard practice (Figs 21 & 22). It was for this project that Chris utilized Plexiglas instead of cloth-covered card, creating the first plastic book cradles in the world of exhibition display.

Fig 20: Peter Waters, Don Etherington and Christopher Clarkson
During his appointment at the Library of Congress Chris also carried out various conservation, repair and rebinding projects and furthered his research on binding structures and past repair techniques. To finish his report on Limp Vellum Binding he received part funding from Vernon Clapp of The Council of Library Resources.

Fig 23: Clarkson’s Limp Vellum Binding Report.
Photograph © Andrew Honey
Unfortunately this report (Fig 23) and the film mentioned previously were never published, however Chris gave a paper at ICON's 4th Triennial Meeting, Venice 1975 entitled ‘Limp Vellum Binding’ which was published in 1985 by Michael Gullick, a former student of his. A revised edition was published in 2005 (and is available for online purchase, click for info & sales).

Through the auspices of John Krill, then of the National Gallery of Art, Chris was approached to work on their Rosenwald cut-out miniature collection. It was this project where he innovated a thread mounting technique for the housing and display of single leaf parchment. The technique utilizes the principle that twisted thread shortens and lengthens in environmental fluctuation opposite to the expansion or contraction movements of parchment (Fig 24). This work culminated in a small jewel-like exhibition at the Gallery. He also carried out conservation work on the Freer Gallery's collection of Islamic manuscript fragments.

Baltimore
In 1977 Chris accepted a position at The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, where he was the first conservator of their manuscript collection. He set up a small workshop and also helped write for Lilian Randall the codicological and binding descriptions for their new manuscript catalogue “Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery”.

Oxford
In 1979 Chris moved back to England to accept a post as the first Conservation Technical Officer at The Bodleian Library (Fig 25). Oxford. With Dr M. L. Turner as Head of Conservation and Judy Segal (Fig 26). as the only paper conservator, they set up a Preservation and Conservation Section which combined the General Bindery and later the Stack staff and Photography sections. The section also became responsible for organising, designing and running the Book and Manuscript Programmes for Oxford University Libraries. Later they were able to organise a more secure and safer exhibition policy. Chris was able to set-up a small area where he could carry out conservation, repair and rebinding projects, as well as one-to-one teaching, during this time numerous library and archival material had Chris's attention.

Among his innovations while at the Bodleian Library were adjustable book cradles for more controlled and gentle conservation treatments (Fig 27) and also for photography. In the last fifteen years more sophisticated adjustable cradles have been developed for use in the world of digital photography. Chris also devised the stepped wedge foam block system for general reading room use <www.Polyformes.co.uk/libraries_theatres.html>.

Chris has sat on various British Standards Institution (BSI) Committees, looking into archival materials, shelf storage, environmental standards etc. Fortunately for him, at the time he arrived at the Bodleian Library Stuart Welch (Fig 28) had just started Atlantis Paper Co Ltd., at the Docklands Art Warehouse, Gulliver's Wharf where he dealt in artists' sundries. Stuart became interested in developing a fully archival board and in supplying other specialist papers. After Atlantis changed hands Stuart started Conservation By Design 1992, which expanded his involvement with Chris into stocking or developing other items such as quality glue brushes, threads, braids and cordage.

Chichester
Concerned about poor training in the field of the conservation of books and manuscripts, in 1987 Chris moved to The Edward James Foundation, Chichester, West Sussex, where he worked on many medieval manuscripts and ran an internship programme with a certain academic input. This provided an opportunity for select conservators from around the world to develop a deeper understanding of the conservation and repair of library and archive material. Well known conservators (Fig 29) who had further training at Chris's West Dean programme are:-

Edward ADCOCK, Amelia AMOS-RAMPTON, Rhea BAIER (now De Stefano), Katerina BALCAROVA (now Powell), Alberto BALLOTTA, Nancy BELL, Maria Luz (Mariluz) BELTRAN DE GEBARA, Hersteinn BRYNJULFSSON, Angela CRAFT, Maria Rosaria CASTELLETTI, Claire DEKLE, Tim EDWARDS, Sally GUTOWSKI, the late Nicholas HADGRAFT, Andrew HONEY, Dana JOSEPHSON, Chantal KARLI, Sally KEY, Joseph LANDRY, Barbara LUFF (now Venables), Fiona MacKINNON (now Prins), Jocelyn MARTIN, Lara Catherine MEREDITH, Bridget MITCHELL, Robert MINTE, Rafael REYES-AYOLE, Alessandro SIDOTI, Ann SPREADBURY (now Attwood), Jiri VNOUCKOVI.
Later at Oxford his interns were:- Angela NÚÑEZ GAITÁN and Flavio MARZO.

Oxford - Freelance
When Chris's West Dean workshop closed in 1998 he returned to Oxford, and set up in private practice. He is presently conservation consultant to the Bodleian Library, The Wordsworth Trust and Hereford Cathedral Mappa Mundi and Chained Library. As a freelance conservator he has worked on the conservation of many important manuscripts and early printed books for well-known Institutions in Europe and America.

Fig 30: A rebinding by C. Clarkson of a 12th century English manuscript.
For eight years he ran a two-week Staff Training programme for The National Archives and National Library of Slovenia. He also runs regular staff training programmes for the Bodleian Library and Dove Cottage, Grasmere. He has given lectures, workshops and run condition & treatment surveys in many countries (Fig 31)

Chris is an authority on the history of bookbinding structure, specializing in the period from the birth of the codex to the early Renaissance (Figs 32 & 33). In this capacity and for many years he has worked with the staff of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York on the early Coptic Binding collections. He has taught regularly on the specialist ‘History of the Book’ courses, organised by Terry Belanger at Virginia University, USA.

Chris has acted as a government representative advising Danish and Icelandic libraries on early manuscripts and reported on the condition of the Book of Kells for Trinity College Dublin. His latest report was for the National Museum of Ireland concerning the stabilization of an eighth century psalter discovered in a peat bog in July 2006. The report contained historical comparisons and suggestions as to possible treatments. John Gillis has been seconded from Trinity College Dublin to treat this extremely difficult artefact. The manuscript has now been named the Fadden More Psalter and dated ca 750, slightly earlier than the book of Kells.

In the last few years Chris has been working for the ‘Saint Catherine Foundation' supporting the Monastery in Sinai. Chris has reported on the early 5th century Ms. Syriac 30 and is considering the stabilization treatment of other early manuscripts. He has just concluded a report on the newly discovered fragments of the Codex Sinaiticus at the Monastery. Nicholas Pickwoad (Fig 34) is in charge of the Library project.

Chris has published books and many articles on various aspects of the materials and techniques of book conservation, also on medieval book production and binding techniques (see 'Publications').

In 2004 he was awarded the Plowden Gold Medal of the Royal Warrant Holders Association in recognition of his significant contribution to the advancement of the conservation profession. An extract of the citation reads, “… Chris's contribution to training and educating young conservators around the world has lead to the invaluable dissemination of his approach to conservation and paradigm of minimal intervention. As an archaeologist of the book, his teachings have fostered a deep historical awareness of the object, requiring profound knowledge of a wide variety of materials and a broad repertoire of techniques…”.