Piers Townshend

Thursday 17th February 2022, 6.30pm

Tessa Blackstone Lecture Theatre [0003]

Have you ever been flooded? Victims of tsunamis suffer greatly, but what upsets them most of all is loss of photos of friends and family. Prompt action and a little knowhow from a paper conservator can save an album before it goes mouldy. Did you buy a cheap Banksy print a few years ago, put it on the wall with sticky tape or BluTac? Now you find that it could be worth a small fortune, if only you could get the stains out. Send for the paper restorer. Architects drawings are often tightly rolled to save on storage. But then they get so springy that they are unreadable. Send for the paper restorer.

Piers Townshend was a bricklayer building houses in Newcastle in the 1970s. Cold weather and chilblains drove him indoors and he retrained as a paper restorer. From 1980 to 2013 he was a paper conservator/restorer at Tate Britain. Turner watercolours, Richard Hamilton prints and everything in between. Since then he has been working freelance. Recent jobs involved Paula Rego, Aubrey Beardsley and of course Banksy.