Sarah Hillary spent 40 years at Auckland Art Gallery, with over 25 serving as Principal Conservator.
In her career, she's painstakingly restored damaged works, detected forgeries, and even used X-rays to find hidden masterpieces beneath layers of paint.
She joins Emile Donovan to look back on her career.
Frances Hodgkins 'Still life with a bottle', oil on paper (1908). Auckland Art Gallery acquired the artwork in 2007, and Sarah Hillary and her team suspected there was another artwork painted underneath, because of the work's uneven surface. Photo: Frances Hodgkins / Auckland Art Gallery / Sarah Hillary
Suspecting there was another artwork hidden underneath the top layer, Sarah Hillary and her colleagues were able to take the Frances Hodgkins painting to Auckland Radiography to get an x-ray done, revealing the faint outline of a figure. Photo: Frances Hodgkins / Auckland Art Gallery / Sarah Hillary
The x-ray revealed this figure underneath layers of paint (outline superimposed on top of image). Photo: Frances Hodgkins / Auckland Art Gallery / Sarah Hillary
