Restorer / conservator · Cataloguer
Laurence J. Morocco
b. 1947
Painter-trained conservator in private practice. Worked for Dominique de Menil; worked with Carol Mancusi-Ungaro and Yanni Petsopoulos.
Life and work
- 1976Established a private conservation practice in London after a five-year apprenticeship specialising in Byzantine art; has done major restoration work for the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum.
LondonCarr & Morrocco 1991
- 1983First heard of the project to reconstruct the Lysi fresco fragments from his client Yanni Petsopoulos (summer 1983).
- July 1984A conservation studio was established in London for reassembling and restoring the 38 segments (26 dome, 12 apse) of the Lysi murals, recovered by the Menil Foundation in 1984 on behalf of the Archbishopric of Cyprus; Morocco led the work in consultation with Peter Rice of Ove Arup and Partners and Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, with Bryan Evans as associate. The fragments had been delivered to a warehouse of Artworld Shipping, North London, and had lost their original curvature.
LondonCarr & Morrocco 1991
- April 1988Restoration completed in 1988; the restored murals reached the Menil Collection, Houston, in April 1988, where they remain under an agreement with the Archbishopric.
HoustonCarr & Morrocco 1991
- 1991Published 'The Reconstruction and Restoration of the Lysi Murals' (printed p. 115) in A. W. Carr and L. J. Morocco, A Byzantine Masterpiece Recovered.
AustinCarr & Morrocco 1991
Connections
5 peopleFieldwork & employment
- Employed by Dominique de Menil1983–1988
Scholarship
- Wrote with Annemarie Weyl Carr1991
- Wrote with Bertrand Davezac1991
Colleagues & contacts
- Worked with Yanni Petsopoulos1983–1988
- Worked with Carol Mancusi-Ungaro1984–1988
- Worked with Bertrand Davezac1991
Objects
Lysi (St. Themonianos) dome and apse frescoes, 38 segments, cut from the church in northern Cyprus after 1974; reassembled and restored
From Lysi, church of St. ThemonianosThe Menil Collection, Houston1984–1988Carr & Morrocco 1991
Sources
- 1.Annemarie Weyl Carr, Laurence J. Morrocco (1991). A Byzantine Masterpiece Recovered: The Thirteenth-Century Murals of Lysi, Cyprus. Austin, University of Texas Press, with the Menil Foundation.