Sydney Beall Nikolaus is the owner and chief conservator of Nikolaus Conservation. Sydney is a professionally trained conservator of easel paintings based in the southern New England area. She received her training at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, where she was awarded her M.S. in the conservation of paintings. Sydney obtained her B.F.A. from Virginia Tech, where she double majored in Studio Art and Art History. 
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Sydney has worked with several museums and cultural institutions in the United States and in Europe, including the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA), The Getty Conservation Institute (Los Angeles, CA), The Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), The Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), and The Shelburne Museum (Shelburne, VT).

Sydney is a peer-reviewed Professional Associate member of the American Institute for the Conservation (AIC). 

Cynthia Schwarz is the Founder and Chief Conservator of Take Care Conservation. She is a painting conservator and museum professional with two decades of experience in museum collections. She came to conservation from a background in studio art, having earned her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in painting. After working as a portrait and mural painter, she earned her MS in painting conservation from the Winterthur / University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. She has special expertise in the conservation of modern and contemporary paintings and in the complex treatment of works on canvas.

Cynthia is a peer-reviewed Professional Member of the American Institute of Conservation (AIC). She not only follows their Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice, but is the co-chair of AIC’s Ethics Core Documents Review Task Force and a past chair of the Paintings Specialty Group. She has lectured, taught, and published extensively.

Cynthia is a first generation American, the daughter of Colombian immigrants, and feels deeply that material culture connects us to our communities, histories, and shared humanity. She loves sharing her love of paint, and believes that caring for art can be a deeply healing experience. She’d love to talk to you about your aspirations for your collection!