Tina Kane, a long-time resident of Warwick, NY, and a renowned textile conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, died from pneumonia on Saturday, July 25, 2015, while visiting her second home near Melbourne, Australia.
Tina worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for thirty years, where she specialized in medieval tapestry and was Conservator in Charge of the landmark Burgos Tapestry project. Upon completing that project in 2009, she convened an international symposium at the Metropolitan, and was subsequently featured in the Museum s YouTube video, The Burgos Tapestry: A Study in Conservation.
Tina is the author of The Troyes M moire: The Making of a Medieval Tapestry, a translation and commentary on a rare medieval French document, and also published numerous essays, translations, poems and reviews in various journals. She gave many talks on her work at venues ranging from the De Young Museum in San Francisco to the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia to the Vatican Nunciature in Washington, DC. Starting in 1978, she was Principal of Tina Kane Textile Conservation & Restoration, an independent conservation service located in Warwick.
Tina was born in Rochester NY in 1942 to Creech Reynolds and Christine Nicholson. At the age of seven, she moved to Australia with her mother. Returning to the U.S. in 1959, she attended college and earned a Masters in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. She subsequently took up weaving, having been initiated into it by the Navajo. Arriving in Warwick from California, she became a prominent member of the Chardavoyne Group, conducting meetings and teaching Movements. Testimonials to her single out her personal warmth and generosity as well as her keen intelligence and sympathetic heart. She is survived by her husband, Paul Kane.Visitation will be on Sunday, August 2nd, from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm at Lazear-Smith & Vander Plaat Memorial Home, 17 Oakland ve., Warwick. Funeral service will be held at 1:0 pm on Monday, August 3rd, at Mulder Chapel, Warwick Conference Center, Hoyt Road, Warwick, NY. Interment will be at 11:00 am on Tuesday, August 4th, gathering at the funeral home at 10:30 a.m.