Dr. Richard Hark is a Senior Conservation Scientist with 25 years’ experience as a chemistry professor before joining IPCH. He has conducted scientific analysis on a wide range of objects, including the Vinland Map, a Gutenberg Bible, fifteenth-century Italian tarocchi cards, Joseph Wright of Derby’s candlelight paintings, William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature, mahogany furniture, works of art from India, and portraits from the Tudor and Stuart periods.
Selected Publications
See also Google Scholar and ResearchGate
- Randy S. Wilkinson with Dr. Richard R. Hark, In Search of True Mahogany- From 18th Century Craft to 21st Century Technology, Mortise & Tenon Magazine, 2026, 20, 48-63.
- A. Dey, L.O. Peterson, S. Choi, R.R. Hark, “Plants and Pigments,” In Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750-1850, L. Peterson, H. Shaffer (Eds.), Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, 2026, pp 78-81.
- R. Hark, “Technical Analysis of the Bat and the Stork Paintings,” In Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750-1850, L. Peterson, H. Shaffer (Eds.), Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, 2026, pp 96-97.
- A. Dey, E. Hartman, R.R. Hark, “The Lucknow Scroll: Materials and Techniques,” In Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750-1850, L. Peterson, H. Shaffer (Eds.), Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, 2026, pp 166-167.
- K. Smith, S. Ebbinghaus, K. Eremin, G. Rayner, J. Thum, C. Books, M. Wiggins, R. Hark, S. Matheson, I. Passeri (2026) Funerary Portraits from Roman Egypt: Facing Forward—An Exhibition and Inter-Institutional Collaboration Looking for the Artists of Ancient Philadelphia, In: Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt. Volume 2: Emerging Research from the APPEAR Project, M. Svoboda and C. Cartwright (Eds.), APPEAR Mummy Portrait Conference, October 19-21, 2022, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
- M.A. Wise, C.S. Throckmorton, R.S Harmon, A.C. Curry, R.R. Hark, Discriminating Granitic Pegmatites by LIBS Analysis of Potassium Feldspar, Can. J. Mineral. Petrol., 2025, 63(6), 583-588.
- K. Wingel, R. Hark, Portrait Painting in Revolutionary New Haven: A Technical Study of Ralph Earl’s Portrait of Roger Sherman, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 2024-2025, 16-23.
- F. Trujillo, F. Pozzi, M-F. Lemay, R. Hark, Tarocchi Teamwork: An International, Multi-institutional Collaborative Research Project, Materia, J. Tech. Art Hist., 2024, 4(1), 6.
- R.S. Harmon, C.S. Throckmorton, G. Haverstock, D. Baron, R. Yohe, R.R. Hark, J.R. Knott, Connecting obsidian artifacts with their sources using multivariate statistical analysis of LIBS spectral signatures, Minerals, 2023, 13(10), 1284.
- T. Fairbanks-Harris, R. Hark, A. Bezur (2023) Tokens of Affection: Examination, Preservation and Conservation of Portrait Miniatures, In: Objects Specialty Group Postprints (2023) 30, 94-112. American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 51st Annual Meeting, May 16-20, 2023, Jacksonville, FL.
- R. Hark (2023) Identification of mahogany and look-alike woods in 18th- and 19th-century furniture using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS), Research and Technical Studies Specialty Group Postprints (2023) 10, 165-166, Papers Presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, May 13-18, 2022, Los Angeles, CA.
- J. David, R. Hark, E. Town, A Real Master Among Hundreds: The Secrets and Techniques of Seventeenth Century Portraiture in Britain, Materia, J. Tech. Art Hist., 2021, 1(1), 6.
BS Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA
PhD Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA