Sandra Webster-Cook

Sandra Webster-Cook completed studies in Honors Science (Chemistry specialization), Art History and Studio art before graduating from the Queen's University Art Conservation program. She became an employee of the AGO in 1987 and was responsible for the conservation of the historical and modern paintings in the collection of the AGO until her retirement.

Her work on the AGO collection includes research on the paintings of Cornelius Krieghoff and Tom Thomson. She carried out the research and a major conservation treatment of Jean Siméon Chardin’s masterpiece, Jar of Apricots. Further research and treatment in the AGO collection focused on Rembrandt von Rijn’s Portrait of a Lady with a Lap Dog, Portrait of a Lady with a Handkerchief (from Rembrandt’s studio), with the support of members of the Rembrandt Research Project, and Peter Paul Rubens’ The Raising of the Cross.

More recently, she collaborated in new scientific and art-historical research on Picasso’s Blue period paintings, with an international team of scientists and experts. The research was presented in the blockbuster exhibition Picasso: Painting the Blue Period, co-organized by the AGO and The Phillips Collection, Washington, in 2021-2022.