Elisabeth West FitzHugh

Elisabeth West FitzHugh (born July 30, 1926 – January 13, 2017) was a Lebanese American conservation scientist. She was a fellow of the American Institute for Conservation and the International Institute for Conservation.

Early life and education Elisabeth West FitzHugh (née Hebard West) was born on July 30, 1926, in Beirut, Lebanon, where her father William A. West was a professor of Chemistry. She attended primary school there at the American Community School Beirut. She was an undergraduate student in chemistry at Vassar College. After earning her bachelor's degree, she moved to the UCL Institute of Archaeology (then University of London), where she earned a master's degree in the Archaeology of Western Asia. During her studies, she worked as an assistant curator and librarian at the American University of Beirut. She visited the Oriental Institute on an archaeological expedition in October 1950. He recommended that she speak to Rutherford John Gettens at the Smithsonian Institution.

FitzHugh was interested in the conservation and protection of art. She held various roles in the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, including Chair of Ethics and Standards and eventually President. 1992: Honorary member of the American Institute for Conservation 2002: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works Forbes Prize 2016: Honorary fellow of the International Institute for Conservation

Legacy FitzHugh retired in 1991, but continued to work at the Smithsonian until 2011. She died in 2017 in Mitchellville, Maryland.

Her personal collection of conservation volumes was donated posthumously to the South African Institute for Heritage Science and Conservation, and form the core of the collection housed there at the Elisabeth FitzHugh Conservation Library

Family FitzHugh was married to Richard FitzHugh, a biophysicist at the National Institutes of Health.

Selected publications