Process to Artwork

Lecture

The Baker Museum presents Process to Artwork
Exploring the Role of Maquettes in Sculpture and Monuments

Rosa Lowinger, author and art conservator at RLA Conservation

Maquettes are known as sketches in three dimensions, objects intended as initial studies for monuments, sculptures or buildings. Artists and architects use these objects to work out ideas or demonstrate them to clients. But many of these works, especially ones that vary from the finished product, take on a status of their own, becoming objects of unique artistic meaning with their own material finishes and documents that show process and the evolution of ideas. This lecture will examine the difference between artists’ and architects’ maquettes from the point of view of an art conservator who sees them both as works of art and documents. We will trace their evolution, focusing primarily on 20th-century iterations.

This presentation is part of the exhibition In the Making: Sketches, Studies and Maquettes from the Permanent Collection.

All exhibition lecture tickets include same-day admission to The Baker Museum.

Rosa Lowinger

Rosa Lowinger

Rosa Lowinger is a Cuban-born writer and materials conservator with a specialty in architectural materials and sculpture. The founder of RLA Conservation LLC, a practice with offices in Los Angeles and Miami, Lowinger is a fellow of the American Institute for Conservation, the Association for Preservation Technology and American Academy in Rome, where she conducted research on the history of vandalism to art and public space. Lowinger writes short stories, essays and literary nonfiction. Her books include Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub (Harcourt: 2006), Promising Paradise: Cuban Allure, American Seduction (FIU: 2026) and the recently published Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair (Row House: 2023). During her work as consultant to the Smithsonian’s Haiti Cultural Recovery Project, Lowinger helped rescue the murals from St. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s collapsed walls.