Paintings Conservation

Ulrich Birkmaier specializes in the treatment, long-term study and care of Old Master and 19th-century European paintings, including technical and materials analyses. He studied paintings conservation at the Doerner Institut, Munich, Germany, and the Istituto Per l’Arte e Il Restauro in Florence. After beginning his career in Munich, Birkmaier served as a graduate intern in the Getty’s paintings conservation department for a year before being appointed assistant paintings conservator. Subsequently he held positions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the Getty Conservation Institute (as conservation guest scholar), and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, where he served as the chief conservator. In July 2018, Birkmaier was appointed senior conservator of paintings at the Getty.

Douglas MacLennan oversees the preparation of paintings for display and loan, and cares for the museum’s frame collection. He received his postgraduate diploma in the conservation of easel paintings from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Douglas joined Getty in 2014 as a graduate intern in the Paintings Conservation Department before his appointment as assistant conservator. Previously, he was an assistant scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute, where he focused on the scientific study of artist’s materials and deterioration processes. Douglas also completed internships at the Bavarian National Museum, UCLA Library Preservation Department, LACMA, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Devi Ormond is a specialist in the conservation and technical examination of 19th-century paintings. She received her Master’s degree in paintings conservation in 1999 from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, and completed several internships both in museums and private studios in Europe and the US, spending two years at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge, UK. She has held positions at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Kröller-Müller Museum, and the Van Gogh Museum. Before arriving at the Getty in 2012, Devi was involved in a long-term collaborative project researching the materials and techniques of Van Gogh and his French contemporaries.

Kari Rayner specializes in the study, preventive care, and treatment of easel paintings from the 15th through 19th centuries. She received her graduate degrees in art history and conservation from the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Kari held various internships prior to and during her graduate training, including at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, Germany and Modern Art Conservation in New York, NY. She completed her graduate internship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She has since held post-graduate positions at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She has additionally held shorter-term positions as a visiting scholar at the Yale Center for British Art and as a project assistant conservator for the Getty’s Conserving Canvas project at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Kari joined Getty in 2020.

Laura Rivers specializes in the study and treatment of paintings from a broad range of periods. She holds an MA in art history from the University of Chicago and an MS in art conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware program in art conservation. Laura first came to the Getty as a graduate intern in 2005–2006 and returned to join the Getty staff in the fall of 2010. In addition to work on the Getty’s own collection and exhibitions, she works on collaborative conservation projects, undertaking the study and treatment of paintings that come to the Getty from other institutions in the US and abroad. These projects have included work on paintings by Gerard David, Marten van Heemskerck, and Jackson Pollock.