About Us

We welcome work from private collectors, museums, institutions, the insurance industry, contractors, and federal and state governments.

Located in central Pennsylvania, our business has been providing professional conservation management, assessment, and treatment services of the highest quality throughout the United States for over 40 years. Our company treats a wide variety of collections, specializing in the conservation of canvas and panel paintings, wall murals, painted surfaces, frames, & painted furniture. We offer emergency and disaster recovery services; environmental monitoring; protection of collections during construction; packing, storage and shipping; exhibition mount making; archival matting and framing; and other related services. Our well-equipped state-of-the-art facility is close to several major highways and is easily accessible by truck. We provide a secure climate-controlled museum environment for artifacts in our care; and can handle extremely large works of art on-site. We frequently augment our core staff with specialized conservators, technicians and artisans to meet your project’s needs.

Our Team

  • John Hartmann

    President - Chief Conservator - AIC Fellow

    40+ years experience

    John manages all aspects of conservation and administration for Hartmann Conservation. He is responsible for the treatment of all paintings, murals, frames, and other projects; as well as oversees the work of all other staff members.

  • William Winters

    Senior Conservator / Conservation Photographer - Frame and Painting Conservation and Scientific Imaging Specialist - AIC Professional Member

    17 years experience

    William manages, or co - manages, all aspects of conservation for Hartmann Conservation, supervises and oversees the daily work of staff, and is responsible for all documentary photography and photographic editing.

  • Schuyler Miller

    Conservator - Inpainting Specialist

    10 years experience

    Schuyler is a master inpainter, working on all aspects of paintings and frame conservation.

  • Matthew Presite

    Conservation Technician - Assistant Conservation Photographer

    Matthew is a recent graduate with a degree in Studio Art focusing in photography. He also has two years prior experience in a gallery setting as a curatorial assistant in art handling. Matthew takes on a variety of tasks in the studio, ranging from painting cleanings to frame work and repairs with an additional several years of knowledge in woodworking.

  • Warren Peckman

    Master Gilder & Frame Fabricator

    30+ years experience

    Warren is responsible for restoration, regilding, and reproduction of historic period frames. Warren is a 4th generation framer and gained years of experience through apprenticeships with skilled craftsman in his trade. He has extensive historic knowledge of frame styles, repair, and fabrication.

Our Standards

It is important to understand that a professionally trained and practicing conservator is bound by the Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice established by the American Institute for Conservation for Historic and Artistic Works (AIC). The reason this is noted as important is because you realize that your artwork or collections will be treated, handled and documented by a nationally established and recognized set of standards. This is what distinguishes a professionally trained and practicing conservator from others who claim to do the same work. Conservation is a profession that requires in-depth knowledge of art history, studio art and chemistry. Conservation started as an organized profession in the 1950’s in an attempt to standardize how museums took care of their collections. At this point in time, all conservators were apprentice trained. In the 1960’s and 1970’s in the United States and Canada a total of four graduate programs were established to formally train students to be conservators. Today, most practicing conservators are either graduate school trained, or have gone through a rigorous apprentice training program.