Buffalo State College's prestigious art conservation department – one of only three such graduate degree programs in the nation – has received a $235,000 award for the 2004–05 academic year from the Leo and Karen Gutmann Foundation.

The one-year grant continues the Gutmann Foundation's support to help resident master's students cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and housing during their first two years of the three-year program. This is the third consecutive Gutmann Foundation award to the Art Conservation Department.

“A world-class program needs incentives in tuition and expenses to attract the best possible students,” said Buffalo State College President Muriel A. Howard. “The continued support of the Gutmann Foundation enables the next generation of art conservators to study in one of the most prestigious art conservation programs in the nation,” she added.

Buffalo State's Art Conservation Department's graduate program, which opened in 1970, is one of just four degree-granting art conservation programs in North America. Students first study the traditional areas of objects, paper and paintings conservation. They later specialize either in one of these three areas or in one of the more recently established areas of photograph, book, and ethnographic and archaeological material conservation. Their program years conclude with a final 12-month internship in their chosen specialty.

The majority of the department's 300 graduates are employed in museum conservation laboratories in the United States and abroad, many of them holding senior posts. Employers include the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the National Gallery of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the J. Paul Getty Museum.

-30-