With integrity and care, New York City-based painting and icon conservator Olga Nikolic-Litwin restores paintings and icons large and small, respecting the piece's age and original intent.

For Olga, the act of restoration has always been reflexive. As a child in the former Yugoslavia, she eagerly revived the patinated beauty of oft-used objects that rested in quietude in her grandmother's home. Bringing the forgotten back to life became her passion. Olga pursued art history and studio art degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and further training in paintings conservation at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Prior to founding her private practice on the Upper East Side of New York City, Olga worked as a fellow in the Paintings Conservation Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on paintings from the 16th to 20th centuries. There she also had the opportunity to study up close some of the most important works in the history of art.

In Europe, Olga restored frescos in medieval monasteries with the Serbian Institute for Preservation of Cultural Monuments, and conserved 15th to 20th-century paintings, icons, and wooden sculptures for the Croatian Conservation Institute in Zagreb. In the 1990s when war broke out in the country, Olga experienced the urgency of art preservation firsthand, rescuing many art objects from churches and private collections in Croatia. Olga is a member of the American Institute of Conservation (AIC).