Archives held at the Hamilton Kerr Institute

John Brealey

25 January 1925 – 19 December 2002

John Brealey was the leading conservator of paintings of his generation and worked in many of the world´s foremost art museums.

He was Head of the Paintings Conservation Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a post to which he was invited in 1975 after an extraordinarily distinguished career as a private restorer in London.

From his position in the Metropolitan Museum, John Brealey trained a new generation of art conservators and continued the cleaning of great paintings for the Met and for other museums in America. His obituary, written by David Bomford and originally printed in The Independent is located on this website for reference.

The archive consists of books, conservation reports and photographs and a personal archive. Please see our Access Policy for more information on accessing this archive.