About us

Our conservation laboratory was established by our father Géza Biro around 1970 after relocating to Montréal, Canada from his native Hungary. There he had worked as painting conservator at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. Atelier Biro, as it was first called in the 1970s, was the beginning of my involvement in what later became an established family business. I have, as has my brother Peter Paul, received my initial training from our father. Following years of apprenticeship, our laboratory was christened Center for Art Restoration. In 1990, Géza Biro retired.

Both Peter Paul and I have continued to serve private collectors and institutions and do so to the present. In the meantime, Peter Paul's interest has increasingly focused on the analysis of materials that make up a work of art and the uncovering and study of forensic evidence that may assist in resolving questions of authenticity.

Our collaboration underscores the importance of charting and scrutinizing the conservation history of paintings, to distinguish between what is original on a painting and what has been added or removed by other hands. This is why the detection and removal of non-original elements should take place concurrently with analytical work. To this we feel strongly committed as only this assures access to reliable sampling and correct analytical results from the original surface.

Over the past three and a half decades as conservators, we contributed to the survival of a great number of paintings - some of them outstanding enough to make headlines.