University of Denver. Center for Art Collection Ethics

Biography

Established Spring 2018 with a mission is to promote ethical art collection stewardship through information and provenance (ownership) research training to graduate students, art professionals and collectors, in short-term, non-credit certificate programs.

Since the 1990s, there has been widely accepted recognition among museum professionals that ethical stewardship includes provenance research on objects in institutions' permanent collections and when acquiring pieces through purchases or donations. Codes of ethics and standards for "best practices" have been created by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), and the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG). Yet there is a persistent lack of provenance research training and many museums lack staff members dedicated to this task.

ACE aims to bridge the gap between accepted standards and common practice.