3 May. Cynthia Ide Rockwell, ICCROM’s Chief of Communications and Publications from 1980 to 1997, passed away on Sunday 28 April. She was 76 years old.

ICCROM had the privilege of working with her for over forty years. Beginning in 1974 in a young organization only just taking shape, she took on a variety of initiatives, and ultimately set up and crafted the identity of ICCROM’s publishing activities.

Cynthia Rockwell was also one of a group of translators who have tackled Cesare Brandi’s monumental text Teoria del restauro; her English translation Theory of Restoration, published by Nardini Editore in 2005, represents one of her crowning achievements, and was a major contribution to the conservation world.

Her guiding light was her deep love of words and of the English language. She had an unerring sense of the subtleties of written communication, and a keen awareness of the need for systematic attention to every last detail. Most importantly, she had the key quality of a brilliant editor: helping authors say what they were trying to say more clearly and in fewer words.

This innate talent made her invaluable in a multicultural organization, as she patiently and gently worked with colleagues worldwide, honing the clarity of the language, while managing to respect the cultural specificity and native tone of the writer. This skill and knowledge was deeply appreciated by her colleagues within ICCROM and beyond. Innumerable last minute doubts about the phrasing of a course announcement or an article were settled with the words “Cynthia has already seen it.”

As Publications Manager, she carefully tended fifty-five titles on a broad range of conservation topics into print, and some of these were her own translations. Under her direction, ICCROM publications became a byword for quality and high standards, both in the conservation concepts they conveyed and in the production values used to implement them – and served as an example for producing low-cost technical publications. She was further instrumental in unifying, developing and computerizing a series of databases – the training directory, the institutions database, the directory of course participants, and ICCROM’s mailing list – that are still essential to ICCROM’s activities and in use today.

Her association with ICCROM began in 1974 with her work on the International Index on Training in Conservation of Cultural Property. She participated with Gaël de Guichen and Susan Inman on the SPC (Scientific Principles of Conservation) Technical Cards on topics such as climate control, security, and lighting in museums, along with biology and paper. After attending the 1976 edition of the Preventive Conservation in Museums course (SEC 1976) as a course participant, Rockwell collaborated on producing the first and second Mosaics conference proceedings, on deterioration and conservation (Rome, 1977) and on safeguard (Carthage, 1978 and Périgueux, 1980). This series would later become the ICCM (International Committee for the Conservation of Mosaics) conference proceedings, which have now reached their eleventh edition.

In 1980 Cynthia Rockwell became permanent staff member responsible for publications and special documentation, assisted by Mónica García Robles (pictured left). Their small team produced books and conference proceedings in multiple languages, along with the annual ICCROM Newsletter in English and French (also published in Spanish for several years in collaboration with UNDP Peru), nineteen issues of the ICCROM Stop Press, and many brochures, leaflets and other promotional materials.

In addition to her ongoing data management work and carrying out surveys to solicit information about Member States, Rockwell also represented ICCROM at the Annual Meetings of Editors of UN Periodicals, and served on the ICCROM Council Standards and Training Committee. She traveled widely visiting and assessing restoration schools as part of her work on this Committee in the 1980s and 1990s.

Cynthia Rockwell was a part of the teaching teams for the Scientific Principles of Conservation course in Rome, and for the Archives Conservation Courses for Latin America in Chile in the late 1990s. Her lectures on issues such as writing scientific articles and setting up newsletters were appreciated even by the most experienced authors in the room: they would gladly skip the coffee break to ask just one more question, as her vast international experience in this area was incomparable.

Following her retirement in 1997, she participated in ICCROM publications as a consultant up to 2000, and even afterward, often contributed an able hand. A subsequent volume that benefited from her skilled review was Conserving Textiles: Studies in Honour of Ágnes Timár-Balázsy, (ICCROM Conservation Studies Series 09, 2009). In 2012 she co-edited the volume Protecting Cultural Heritage in Times of Conflict which presented participant contributions from the “International Course on First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Conflict”; this volume was to be her last collaboration with ICCROM.

Born in Los Angeles, California on 1 August 1936, Cynthia Ide was raised there and in Texas, Virginia and Connecticut. While at the Putney School in Vermont, USA, she met her future husband Peter Rockwell, who would later become a noted sculptor and stone carving historian and specialist. After Cynthia completed a Bachelor of Sciences (BSc) degree in child development at Cornell University, she and Peter moved in 1962 to Rome, where they resided for over fifty years.

Cynthia Rockwell is survived by her husband, four children, and grandchildren. Her simple yet elegant writing style, her unruffled demeanor and strength of character, her practical sense and gentle humour charmed the many people with whom she came into contact over the years. Those fortunate to be invited to her terrace overlooking the pine groves of Gianicolo Hill came to know her as a kind and generous hostess, a loyal and helpful friend. Her brief text “ICCROM Publications in Retrospect” (ICCROM Newsletter 35, October 2009, p. 12) gives a wry sense of her as a writer and a person.

Dear Cinny, we love you very much, and we will miss you terribly.

Paul Arenson
Mónica García Robles
Katriina Similä

updated on: 3 May, 2013