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  • WHERE I WORK

Tweezers, water, mulberry paper: my toolkit for repairing ancient Japanese art

Art conservator Jiro Ueda uses traditional techniques and natural solutions to repair priceless paintings and artefacts.
  1. Rachael Pells

    1. Rachael Pells is a freelance journalist in London.

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Jiro Ueda’s meticulous process at a lightbox conserving Japanese artworks in the Smithsonian museum’s collection, U.S.

Jiro Ueda is an art conservator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington DC. Credit: Stephen Voss/Smithsonian

I started working in 1996 at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington DC. I came from Japan, thinking it would be interesting to stay in the United States for a couple of years. Twenty-seven years later, I am still here, and still using the same traditional techniques to repair artwork, such as this thirteenth-century Buddhist painting The Miraculous Interventions of Jizo Bosatsu.

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Nature 614, 802 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00513-3

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