Painting Specialty Group – AIC Blog Archives: Conservators Converse

ECPN Interviews: Electronic Media Conservation with Christine Frohnert

To promote awareness and a clearer understanding of different pathways into specializations that require particular training, The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN) is conducting a series of interviews with conservation professionals in these specialties. We kicked off the series with Chinese and Japanese Painting conservation, and now we are focusing on Electronic Media Conservation (EMG). These conservators work with time-based media, which is characterized by artwork with durational elements, such as slide, film, and video, analog or born-digital materials, performance, light or kinetic art, sound or software-based art. We’ve asked our interviewees to share some thoughts about their career paths, which we hope will inspire new conservation professionals and provide valuable insight into these areas of our professional field.

In the first interviews for this series, we spoke with emerging conservators starting in the early stages of their careers working in time-based media, which included Alexandra Nichols, Nicholas Kaplan, Brian Castriota and Yasmin Desssem. In this interview, we hear from Christine Frohnert, a conservator who graduated in 2003 from the University of Arts in Berne, Switzerland, where she majored in the Conservation of Modern Materials and Media. Prior to establishing a private practice for Time-based Media (TBM) with colleague Reinhard Bek, Christine served as chief conservator at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany for twelve years and as chair of the AIC Electronic Media Group from 2008-2012. In 2012, she was named the inaugural Judith Praska Distinguished Visiting Professor in Conservation and Technical Studies at the Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (CC/IFA/NYU), where she now serves as the Time-based Media Art Conservation Curriculum Development Program Coordinator.

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Christine Frohnert and Reinhard Bek [Photo: Reinhard Bek]

ECPN: Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your current position.

Christine Frohnert (CF): I am a conservator of contemporary art with a specific focus on technology-based art. Reinhard Bek and I founded Bek & Frohnert LLC in NYC in 2012- a conservation studio in private practice specializing in the conservation of time-based media (TBM). We are both German, have been trained in Europe, worked in leading positions in museums, and have been involved in international research projects.

Bek and I focus on the conservation of artworks with a durational element in our practice—such as sound, moving image, performance, light, or movement, that unfolds to the viewer over time via slide, film, video, software, or the internet. Since the studio’s inauguration, we have responded to individual needs for both TBM conservation treatments and consulting requests. However, over the last several years, we have experienced a rising demand to serve as consultants for different U.S. institutions without time-based media conservators on staff, as well as for collectors and artists. As many TBM art collecting institutions are facing rapidly increasing needs to adequately acquire, preserve, exhibit and store TBM works, we are responding to this development and our work is more geared towards long-term collection care and the development of preservation plans, as well as education.

ECPN: How were you first introduced to conservation, what contributed to your decision to specialize in time-based media, and why has been your training pathway?

CF: As with most of my colleagues, I started conservation being exposed to more traditional media such as paintings and sculpture. About 20 years ago, I realized that technology-based artworks can be seriously harmed or lost without a new conservation specialty being established. I became fascinated with TBM, and I learned about the newly established program ‘Conservation of Modern Materials and Media’ at the University of Arts, Berne, Switzerland. I graduated from there in 2003.

ECPN: Are there any particular skills that you feel are important or unique to your discipline?

Christine Frohnert [Photo: Marlies Peller]

CF: A complex range of skill sets are needed, which should be solidly grounded in the conceptual framework of contemporary art conservation as a whole. It requires knowledge in electrics/electronics and programming, and an in-depth understanding of each media category, technology and its preservation, documentation and digital preservation needs. As our profession is highly collaborative by nature, soft skills are equally important to collaborate with all the stakeholders in the institutions involved, as well as with affiliated external professionals such as engineers, computer scientists, and technicians. This is important when defining, communicating, and verifying goals with vendors.

As many museums recently formed or are currently forming ‘Media Teams’ in their respective institutions to tackle their individual TBM collections needs, we have witnessed a rapidly increasing need for skilled labor, dedicated TBM lab space, equipment, and the trustworthy storage and management of huge amounts of born-digital or digitized artworks.

ECPN: What are some of your current projects, research, or interests?

CF: Currently our recent projects include consultation with several institutions to analyze their TBM collections and develop custom-designed conservation strategies according to their individual collections needs and skill sets of staff. These consultations may include surveys, assistance with media acquisitions, exhibitions and artwork documentation, storage, and migration. Bringing in external expertise often provides the bridge that many museums and their TBM stakeholders do not find in-house or do not have the capacity to coordinate. This work helps to identify and structure these needs more clearly and often provides the basis for institutional development and the implementation of larger collection care projects.

Recent and current treatment-based activities range from analyzing the ‘mechanical’ programming of a light-based work, the conservation of a seven channel-video wall from 1998 consisting of 207 Cathode Ray Tube monitors, digitization of analog video, and the reverse engineering of custom-designed large format slide projectors, to name a few.

Cathode Ray Tube monitor [Photo: Marlies Peller]

ECPN: In your opinion, what is an important need in your specialization?

CF: the most pressing need is education. Technology-based art is considered to be very sensitive to damage, loss, misinterpretation, and incorrect installation, due to its very specific and sensitive relationship to time, space, and concept. Damage or loss of a TBM work cannot be seen by simply examining the physical material and may not be immediately apparent unless the individual has received specialized training.

TBM conservation has been identified as a priority by many museums, collectors, and funding agencies. However, the educational opportunities are still limited, and there is currently no U.S. graduate program offering a degree in this specialty (but this will change soon!). As a result, a huge amount of our most recent cultural heritage is at risk, in an unknown condition, and/or not sufficiently integrated into museums’ missions of collecting, exhibition, conservation, research, and education.

However, thanks to the generous funding provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, started the TBM art conservation curriculum planning project in 2016.The new TBM specialization will be integrated within its current curriculum starting in fall 2018. This will be the first conservation program offering this specialty in the U.S. and the graduates will receive a dual degree: an MS in the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works and an MA in the History of Art and Archaeology.

ECPN: Have you been involved in any advocacy, outreach, teaching or professional service roles in your specialization?

CF: During my time as EMG (Electronic Media Group) board Chair from 2008-2012, we received numerous request from the membership to offer continuing education opportunities, and in response EMG launched the conference series entitled TechFocus in 2010. The series is designed to provide hands-on guidance and systematic education on different media categories (TechFocus I: Caring for Video Art, Guggenheim Museum, NY, in 2010; TechFocus II: Caring for Film and Slide Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, 2012; TechFocus III: Caring for Software-based Art, Guggenheim Museum, NY, in 2015). In addition, the first periodical worldwide that focuses on TBM art conservation was launched by the EMG in 2012, The Electronic Media Review.

At the (CC/IFA/NYU) I have offered instruction in TBM conservation art in different capacities, including the course Art With A Plug: The Conservation of Artwork Containing Motion, Sound, Light, Moving Images and Interactivity (Fall 2012 and Spring 2015).

Several professional organizations and initiatives have created additional targeted educational opportunities and collaborations. However, despite all these good developments, further training is needed at the graduate level, as well as in continuing education for professionals, to address the fast-increasing demands of TBM conservation.

Under the leadership of Dr. Hannelore Roemich, Professor of Conservation Science and TBM program Director, I have also served as TBM Program Coordinator to assist in identifying skill sets and core competencies of TBM conservators that translate into the educational needs to develop a TBM curriculum. In the fall of 2016 the Conservation Center offered the course and public lecture series Topics in Time-based Media Art Conservation, which included ten lectures by leading art historians, artists, computer scientists, and conservators. These events were an important outreach component of the curriculum development project, and they created the opportunity to promote the field, foster the dialogue between TBM professionals, and build a community.

We are now organizing the upcoming symposium It’s About Time! Building a New Discipline: Time-based Media Art Conservation to be held in May 2018. The two-day symposium will provide a forum for educators, artists, art historians, museum curators and directors, collectors, gallerists, engineers, computer scientists, and conservators to promote TBM art conservation as a discipline on an international level and will conclude the TBM curriculum planning phase.

ECPN: Do you have any advice for prospective emerging conservators who would like to pursue this specialization?

Cathode Ray Tube monitor [Photo: Christine Frohnert]

CF: While I am not comfortable issuing general advice, I can say that I personally appreciate working with students and colleagues in our field, and that this has shaped and enriched my professional life. If you are a strong communicator who is interested in the intersection of art and technology, art conservation, and art history– and maybe you even have a background in one or more of the related media fields–why don’t you join the EMG sessions at the AIC annual meetings and/or attend the upcoming NYU symposium to engage with the TBM community and find out if this specialty may be just the right fit for you?

ECPN: Please share any last thoughts or reflections.

CF: We currently see an extremely high demand for trained TBM conservators. This can be measured by the exponentially increasing job offers worldwide and the challenges many institutions face to find qualified candidates. So, it is safe to say that this is the best moment in time for becoming a TBM conservator in this country. If you are interested in pursuing a career in TBM conservation- check out the new TBM curriculum page at the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts at NYU.

ECPN Interviews: Electronic Media Conservation with Yasmin Dessem

To promote awareness and a clearer understanding of different pathways into specializations that require particular training, the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN) is conducting a series of interviews with conservation professionals in these specialties. We kicked off the series with Chinese and Japanese painting conservation, and now we are focusing on practitioners in AIC’s Electronic Media Group (EMG). These conservators work with time-based media, which can include moving components, performance, light or sound elements, film and video, analog or born-digital materials. We’ve asked our interviewees to share some thoughts about their career paths, which we hope will inspire new conservation professionals and provide valuable insight into these areas of our professional field.

This is the third post from ECPN’s EMG blog series, for which we first interview Nick Kaplan and more recently, Alex Nichols. For our third interview from the EMG series, we spoke with Yasmin Dessem, currently Head of the Audiovisual Preservation Studio at UCLA Library where she serves as the technical lead as the library continues to develop its program of preservation, digitization and access of its moving image and sound holdings. Previously she managed archive deliverables for new feature releases at Paramount Pictures. She has experience working with a wide variety of moving image and sound formats, as well as pre-film animation devices, silent-era cameras, costumes and paper collections. Yasmin holds Master’s degrees in Art History and Moving Image Archive Studies from UCLA.

Yasmin Dessem (left) and Allie Whalen (right) cleaning and relubricating a Betacam deck. [Photo: Walter Urie]

ECPN: Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your current position.

Yasmin Dessem (YD): I oversee the preservation of moving image and recorded sound materials at the UCLA Library’s Preservation Department. For nearly 90 years, the UCLA Library has collected audiovisual materials with content such as home movies, oral histories, and radio broadcasts. Examples are home movies of Susan Sontag’s parents sailing to China in the 1920s and field interviews with Watts residents after the 1965 riots. Audiovisual preservation (AV) at the library is a relatively young unit—a dedicated AV preservationist first came on board in 2011. We offer a number of in-house digitization and preservation services and are currently focusing on increasing our capacity and launching a survey.

ECPN: How were you first introduced to conservation, and why did you decide to pursue conservation?

YD: The 1996 re-release of the restored version of Vertigo first made me aware of film restoration and preservation as an actual practice. Later, as I was finishing my Masters in Art History at UCLA, I took a wonderful class on restoration, preservation, and conservation with Professor David A. Scott. The course covered the material care issues and decision-making ethics for a wide breadth of cultural heritage materials. The class struck a deep chord with me, but I was eager to graduate and start working. After graduation, I ended up working in the film industry for about six years. I was tracking down historic stock footage at one job when my mind circled back to the preservation field as I considered how the films were stored and made available. I had entertained the idea of potentially returning to graduate school to study art conservation some day, but around that time the idea of film preservation as a possible career path began to fully materialize for me. As a result, I began exploring potential graduate programs.

ECPN: Of all specializations, what contributed to your decision to pursue electronic media conservation?

YD: My longtime love for film and music intersected with my curiosity for all things historical and technology-related. These were topics that in one form or another always interested me, but I don’t think I had a full grasp on how to combine them meaningfully into a profession. Preservation was the missing key. My exposure to preservation and conservation while studying art history and my later experience working at film studios both helped direct me towards the specialization.

ECPN: What has been your training pathway? Please list any universities, apprenticeships, technical experience, and any related jobs or hobbies.

YD: I pursued my studies in the Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS) Program at UCLA—which persists today as a Master of Library and Information Science (M.L.I.S.) with a Media Archival Studies specialization. While in the program, I completed internships with Universal Pictures and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and volunteered at the Hugh Hefner Moving Image Archive at the University of Southern California. Throughout the two-year MIAS program, I also worked as a fellow at the Center for Primary Research and Training program at UCLA Library Special Collections, where I learned archival processing. My experiences weren’t limited to preserving moving image and sound media, but included paper-based collections, costumes, and film technology. After graduating I attended the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) Film Restoration Summer School hosted by the Cineteca di Bologna and L’Immagine Ritrovata.

ECPN: Are there any particular skills that you feel are important or unique to your discipline?

YD: Digital preservation will continue to be a key area of expertise that’s needed in museums and archives. Preserving the original source material and digitizing content is not enough. There are more resources than ever for strategies and tools for digital preservation, and it’s important to seek them out. Another valuable skill is developing a level of comfort with handling and understanding the unique characteristics of a wide variety of physical analog formats such as film, videotape, audiotape, and grooved media (LP, 78s, lacquer discs, wax cylinders, etc.). Similarly, it’s helpful to have a familiarity with playback devices for these obsolete media formats (equipment like open-reel decks or video decks.) Lastly, metadata can be an unsung hero in media preservation. Often, we’re the first to see or hear a recording in decades, so capturing metadata around the point of transfer is critical. Metadata standards can be a rabbit hole of complexities, especially when it comes to describing audiovisual media, but understanding their application is an essential skill.

Lacquer disc cleaning and transfer workshop at the Instituto de Historia de Cuba in Havana, Cuba [Photo: Yasmin Dessem]

ECPN: What are some of your current projects, research, or interests?

YD: We’re just wrapping up digitization of materials from the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company (GSM), an African American-owned and operated insurance firm established in Los Angeles in 1925 in response to discriminatory practices that restricted the ability of African American residents to purchase insurance. GSM operated for 85 years and their collection is a vibrant resource documenting Los Angeles and the empowerment of a community. We received grants from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to support this work. The digitized collection is now available on Calisphere. We’ve just started a crowd sourcing project working with former GSM staffers to describe any unidentified content. It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career, hearing everyone’s stories and seeing how much it means to everyone involved to have this collection preserved and made available.

We’ve also been in preparation to launch a large-scale survey that will help us gather data on the Library’s audiovisual collections that can be used for long term-planning. Outside of UCLA, we’ve been involved with ongoing work with cultural heritage institutions in Cuba. Last February, I set up equipment and held a workshop on the digitization of radio transcription discs held at the Instituto de Historia de Cuba (IHC) in Havana. I’m heading back there next week to begin a project to transfer IHC’s open reel audio collections.

ECPN: In your opinion, what is an important research area or need in your specialization?

YD: It’s crucial to preserve the expertise related to the operation and repair of playback equipment. Playback equipment will become more and more difficult to source in the future. Engineers, whose entire careers are dedicated to the use and care of this equipment, are some of the best resources for this knowledge. Their knowledge is shared through conversation, YouTube videos, social media, and professional workshops. Documenting the skills required to handle, maintain, calibrate, and service this equipment in a more formalized way and sharing that knowledge widely will ensure that the preservationists can keep their equipment viable for longer.

ECPN: Do you have any advice for prospective emerging conservators who would like to pursue this specialization?

YD: Try everything. Media preservation requires a wide variety of skills from computer coding to soldering decades-old circuit boards. Depending on where your career takes you, it’s good to have at least a passing familiarity with the full range of skills you may need to call upon. Apply for internships or fellowships with organizations, like the National Digital Stewardship Residency. Volunteer at community-based archives that need help getting their collections in order. Join professional organizations, like the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) or the Association of Moving Image Archivists. Attend conferences like code4lib, the Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG), or the Digital Asset Symposium (DAS). Network with engineers or preservation professionals to continue to grow your own expertise, but also share your own skills when you can. Collaboration and knowledge-sharing are a fundamental part of the profession.

Perforation repair of 16 mm film [Photo: Yasmin Dessem]

ECPN: Please share any last thoughts or reflections.

YD: One thing to be aware of, if you’re a woman in the field of audiovisual preservation, is that you may occasionally run into people who are surprised to see a woman working with technology (much less wielding a screwdriver!). This response persists to some degree despite the presence of many successful female professionals in the field. What’s encouraging, however, is seeing the growth of groups like the Women in Recorded Sound collective at ARSC providing support.

Audiovisual preservation is such a gratifying profession. Having the opportunity to make historic content available is incredibly meaningful work that I feel lucky to be a part of everyday. On an even more basic level, figuring out a new workflow or getting a piece of equipment to finally work is just so viscerally satisfying. I’m part of an amazing team whose passion, humor and willingness to try out new things inspires me every day and makes me feel so lucky to be doing this work.

ECPN Interviews: Electronic Media Conservation with Alexandra Nichols

In our first EMG interview, we spoke with Nick Kaplan. Now for our second interview from the EMG series, we turn to with Alexandra Nichols, currently a Sherman Fairchild Foundation Fellow in the conservation of time-based media and installation art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 2016-2017, she was a Samuel H. Kress Foundation Fellow in Time-based Media Conservation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She earned her Master’s of Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (2016) where she concentrated on the conservation of modern and contemporary objects.

ECPN: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Alexandra Nichols (AN): I received my Master’s of Conservation from Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation in 2016, where I concentrated on the conservation of modern and contemporary objects. I recently completed a one-year fellowship as a Samuel H. Kress Foundation Fellow in Time-based Media Conservation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, where I was working under Joanna Phillips, the Guggenheim’s Senior Conservator of Time-based Media. Just a few weeks ago, I joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a Sherman Fairchild Foundation Conservation Fellow, where I’ll be working with the Met’s collection of time-based media and installation art.

ECPN: How were you first introduced to conservation, and why did you decide to pursue conservation?

AN: After obtaining my undergraduate degree in art history, I moved to London and landed a job as an executive assistant at the British Museum. While there, I visited the Hirayama Studio, the British Museum’s conservation lab dedicated to the care and treatment of East Asian paintings and works on paper. It’s a beautiful, peaceful room, with tatami mats and walls lined with brushes and different types of paper. I loved how the conservators could develop such a close, tactile relationship with the artworks, and how the treatments were carried out with respect for the cultures that created the works. This led me to seek out internships where I could gain experience in conservation.

ECPN: Of all specializations, what contributed to your decision to pursue electronic or time-based media conservation?

AN: I’m really fascinated by the wide range of materials and methods utilized by contemporary artists. Something I love about time-based media art is its complexity and variability. An artwork may have multiple channels of video, require a very specific placement in the gallery, or be shown differently based on the size or shape of the room.

My training is in objects conservation, focusing on the conservation of contemporary art. During the course of my graduate studies, none of the North American programs offered coursework in time-based media*. Thus, I was able to explore working with time-based media during my graduate internships at the Hirshhorn and the Museum of Modern Art. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that many of the time-based media pieces I’ve worked on incorporate sculptural elements, so my graduate training has been helpful in ways I didn’t expect. Learning how these objects should be placed in an installation and their relationship to electronic and audiovisual elements is really intriguing.

*The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) at New York University is implementing a curriculum geared towards the conservation of time-based media, and is accepting applications this this year for Fall 2018 matriculation. http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/conservation/time-based-media.htm

Alexandra and Contract Video Engineer Maurice Schechter conduct a quality check (QC) on a video file. [Photo: Joanna Phillips]

ECPN: What has been your training pathway? Please list any universities, apprenticeships, technical experience, and any related jobs or hobbies.

AN: I’ve always had an interest in computers and electronics. In middle school and high school, I learned the programming language C, built computers as a hobby, and took courses in video editing and digital photography as part of my undergraduate degree.

I’m originally from the Washington, DC area, and after deciding to pursue conservation, I completed pre-program internships and contracts at various museums in the Smithsonian system, including the Freer and Sackler Galleries, the Museum Conservation Institute, and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

In 2013, I began my graduate studies at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, where I specialized in the conservation of modern and contemporary objects. As a graduate student, I completed a summer internship at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, preparing time-based media works in their collection for the 2014 exhibition Days of Endless Time. During my third-year internship at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I collaborated with Kate Lewis and Amy Brost to treat a pearlescent bead-adorned cathode ray tube television set by Nam June Paik and Otto Piene.

Additionally, the chance to work with Joanna Phillips at the Guggenheim has been thrilling—there aren’t many opportunities to learn about time-based media conservation in the American graduate conservation programs, so emerging conservators must gain expertise through internships and fellowships. However, this is changing soon — The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) at New York University is implementing a curriculum geared towards the conservation of time-based media, and is accepting applications this year for Fall 2018 matriculation (link: https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/conservation/time-based-media.htm). I’ll be utilizing the skills I’ve developed over the past year at my current fellowship working with the time-based media art collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ECPN: Are there any particular skills that you feel are important or unique to your discipline?

AN: Strong documentation skills are important in any specialization, but this is especially true for time-based media. The inherent variability of time-based media requires extensive research and documentation to ensure that it can be installed correctly in the future. It’s also important to know about the history of video production, including film history and the development of various formats. Foundational knowledge of video and other technologies is also crucial and has to be updated continuously, since technology is always evolving. Without this knowledge, media conservators cannot seek out and engage external specialists and vendors who can provide specific technical expertise

ECPN: What are some of your current projects, research, or interests?

AN: I am just getting started at The Met, but I am currently working with Nora Kennedy and Meredith Reiss to help document the 250 time-based media artworks in The Met’s collection. This includes updating questionnaires that are sent to artists during the acquisition process, which help us learn more about the production history and intended exhibition of the artwork, and researching past exhibitions to create retroactive iteration reports. The Met has had a Time-based Media Working Group for many years now, and I am looking forward to collaborating with its members as I conduct my research.

Image of a Skype interview with an artist, in which Alexandra and Contract Video Engineer Maurice Schechter discuss the audio channels of an artist-provided video file. [Photo: Alexandra Nichols]

ECPN: In your opinion, what is an important research area or need in your specialization?

AN: I think the acquisition and display of virtual reality (VR) will pose a number of challenges for conservators in the coming years. Artists are increasingly experimenting with these types of works—Jordan Wolfson exhibited a VR work in the Whitney Biennial this year, for example—but as far as I know, no museums have acquired a VR piece yet. This technology is so new and is still being developed, and as a result, there’s so much potential for the obsolescence of file formats and hardware.

ECPN: Do you have any advice for prospective emerging conservators who would like to pursue this specialization?

AN: Try playing around with how to shoot and edit your own video in Final Cut Pro or Premiere! It will teach you about digital video formats and give you some insight into the artist’s process. And, don’t be afraid to reach out to conservators you admire to learn more about what they do!

ECPN: Please share any last thoughts or reflections.

AN: Supervised training under established media conservators is essential to the development of one’s skills as an emerging time-based media conservator. Fellowships and internships provide practical experience with real-life museum scenarios that is not possible to gain through readings or coursework. I am extremely grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Sherman Fairchild Foundation for providing me with opportunities to hone my expertise at the Guggenheim and The Met.

*Featured photograph: Alexandra examines a MiniDV tape containing an artwork while working at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. [Photo: Kris Mckay]

45th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, June 1, 2017 – “Using Butvar® B-98 as a Consolidant for Friable Matte Paint by Claire Winfield”

Covering a pair of practical case studies, Claire Winfield’s presentation on her recent uses of Butvar® B-98 was clear and informative. Winfield, the Associate Painting Conservator at Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM), featured two artworks that share the characteristic of having friable matte paint, but the process and purpose for consolidation of each one varied. Her ability to modify her approach for each situation was guided by research and first-hand tests with Butvar® B-98.

Molecular structure of Butvar®. Image taken during presentation.

Butvar® B-98 is one of a series of trademarked polyvinyl butyral resins, which are valued for their clarity, adhesion to varied surfaces, rheology, toughness, flexibility, and aging characteristics. Butvars® are available in a range of molecular weights (MW) and can be applied in a variety of solvents by brush or spray. They are typically used in objects conservation for materials such as deteriorated wood, stone, plaster, bone, fossils, and baskets, because they can retain a matte surface and cause little color saturation.

In both of Winfield’s featured treatments, she needed to stabilize paint without altering its optical properties – a steep challenge given their powdery surfaces. Winfield focused on the energy relationships between Butvar® B-98 and the painted surfaces, reducing the adhesive’s particle size (B-98 is the lowest MW Butvar® available) and spray applying it in multiple dilute coatings to promote penetration. Keeping the spray tip completely clean and pre-wetting the surface with solvent were helpful in this process.

Historic information about Fabspray. Image taken during presentation.

The first case study was Enforcer (1962) by Larry Poons, composed of Liquitex acrylic paint and Fabspray on canvas. The Fabspray, a spray paint for fabric with vinyl and alkyd resin binders, unfortunately aged very poorly, having deteriorated to the point of actively shedding pigment. The goal of treatment was to keep the paint in place for safe dusting of the surface. Adhesive tests included Butvars® of varying weight, gelatin, and methylcellulose. Due to its small particle size, low viscosity in ethanol, strength, and minimal visual effect, a 1% Butvar® B-98 in ethanol was chosen as the consolidant. Since the Liquitex and Fabspray were applied to the painting in discrete areas, it was possible to mask the Liquitex areas while spray applying six coats of dilute consolidant to the Fabspray. The results were successful in that the paint no longer actively sheds and remains visually matte; however, the surface still cannot be safely dusted, and there was a slight but acceptable saturation of the color.

Photomicrograph of problematic paint. Siegfried Reinhardt, Micenic, 1942, oil, Siegfried Reinhardt. Image taken during presentation.

Micenic (c. 1942) by Siegfried Reinhardt, an oil painting on pressed board, was the second case study. The paint layer was locally cracked and lifting away from the board, and it was also lacking in cohesive strength: the lifting paint crumbled from brush contact and could not withstand heat. Following tests, the surface was pre-wet with 60:40 toluene:ethanol then then sprayed overall with 2% Butvar® B-98 in the same solvent mix to give the paint cohesive strength. Ethanol helped lower the viscosity of the adhesive, and toluene prevented tidelines caused by the paint’s slight ethanol sensitivity. BEVA® 371 in naphtha with heat assistance could then be applied to readhere the lifting paint to the board without undermining the cohesion provided by the B-98. This two-layer consolidation process successfully preserved both the structure and appearance of this painting.

Winfield’s work provided two responsible and creative examples for how Butvar® B-98 can be a useful addition to a paintings conservator’s toolkit.

45th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, June 1, 2017 – “Conserving the Paintings of Romaine Brooks by Tiarna M. Doherty”

On the final day of specialty group presentations at AIC’s Chicago meeting, Tiarna Doherty, Chief of Conservation at the Lunder Conservation Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), rewarded attendees with a lovely presentation about the singular artist Romaine Brooks. The Smithsonian Renwick Gallery mounted the exhibition “The Art of Romaine Brooks” in 2016, and Doherty examined over 30 paintings by Brooks in preparation, many of which were featured in the show. Weaving into a captivating story Brooks’s biography, aesthetic preferences, and technical practices, Doherty also conveyed the rationale for her practical conservation approach in response to how the paintings have altered over time.

Still image from presentation. Painting show in detail (left), overall normal light (center), and ultraviolet illumination (right). Romaine Brooks, Una, Lady Troubridge, 1924, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1966.49.6.

Romaine Brooks (1874-1970) is known for her stunning portraits, often featuring friends who were leading figures in the arts and humanities at the time. Born in Italy but raised in New York, Brooks’s father left when she was young, and her mother was not supportive of Brooks’s artistic pursuits. From 1890-1900, she lived in Capri with many other ex-patriots with non-traditional lifestyles; the location was a refuge following Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trials in London. Brooks met her husband in Capri, but their marriage was unsuccessful in no small part because he disapproved of her preference for masculine attire. She eventually settled in Paris in 1905. Her unpublished autobiography, which she illustrated with drawings, was titled “No Pleasant Memories.”

Brooks recorded very little about her aesthetic preferences or artistic technique, leaving only her artistic output and a few historic photographs to fill in the blanks. Her painting technique reveals some academic knowledge, though she may not have had formal training. Chalk lines and colored ground layers, such as the salmon orange preparatory layer in The Charwoman (1904), were followed by thin washes of paint and numerous glazes composed of her own mixture of oil and resin. She often used oil paint to reinforce contours on top of natural resin varnish layers to create the final surface. Painted black dashes, and in one case silver dashes, define the outer boundaries of many paintings.

In addition to painting and drawing, Brooks demonstrated an innovative attentiveness to interior design. Frame design and surface finish were clearly a consideration in her pursuit of Whistler-influenced harmony of color and tone. In one example from Doherty’s presentation, Brooks had a particular frame with a large rabbet in mind when planning a painting’s composition, as she painted the canvas only where it would show within the frame window. In another example, both the painting and the frame had a black ground layer visible beneath the finished surface – such efforts earned the accolades of “reigning in harmony” in a 1910 exhibition review.

Not surprisingly, the natural resin-containing layers of Brooks’s paintings have darkened over time. Brooks herself may even have seen the changes begin, as she chose to keep most of her paintings until her death. The presence of glazes and varnish in alternating layers with original oil paint make conservation especially challenging. In addition, conservators at SAAM observed that later applications of Paraloid® B-72, now getting cloudy, were difficult to remove safely due to sensitivity of the original materials beneath. Treatment goals leading up to the Smithsonian’s exhibition were therefore a combination minimal intervention and passive technology. When possible, degraded varnishes were reduced and surfaces resaturated. To restore some of the original cooler tonality, gallery lighting was employed to virtually compensate for some of the current altered appearance.

Doherty reminded us of Oscar Wilde’s relevant words from The Portrait of Dorian Gray, that “some things are more precious because they don’t last long.” But a conservator does what she can. This careful study of an artist and her technique led to both a thoughtful approach for displaying Brooks’s paintings, aged but still striking; as well as this transmission of her harmonious original vision.

45th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, 1 June, “Color Field Paintings and Sun-Bleaching: An approach for removing stains in unprimed canvas” by Jay Krueger

Jay Krueger’s talk was a great synthesis of the most interesting and exciting ideas running through this year’s conference: interdisciplinary collaboration, a thoughtful and considered approach to complicated and seemingly radical (but necessary treatments), and recognition of the fact that well-intentioned traditional attempts to minimize or limit treatment can cause unintended secondary damage. The talk focused on the National Gallery of Art’s treatment of Morris Louis’ 133, painted in 1972.

Color field painting, as exemplified here in Louis’ work, focuses on areas of pure color, and its abstracted forms are freed from the constraints of representation, brushwork, etc. Unlike traditional paintings with distinct layers of canvas, ground, paint, etc. the direct application of (sometimes thinned) paint to unprimed canvas allowed the paint to soak into the canvas support, staining it rather than sitting on its surface. The unprimed canvas is integral to the composition: its flat, unbroken expanse of color (i.e. the material itself) and relationship to the paint is essential, and any disruption of this is as detrimental to the work as damage to the paint layer would be. The painting was already described as having a “smudge” on the canvas when it entered the Gallery’s collection in 1976, and its condition had not improved over time, despite attempts at locally treating damages and defects in the canvas. By 2007 the stain was so pronounced, and other areas of staining had developed to such a degree, that the painting was suggested as a suitable candidate for more significant treatment.

It was at this point that the NGA felt comfortable enough to consider putting into practice a methodology they have now spent twenty years investigating and testing, and which I found to be the most inspiring part of the talk. Their proposed treatment embraced the rejection of three principles generally regarded as law in paintings conservation: don’t put your paintings in direct sunlight, don’t expose them to water, and limit your interventions to the minimum level of what is necessary to treat areas of damage. The NGA quite rightly recognized that for these specific conservation concerns, paintings conservation could gain from consulting and borrowing from our colleagues in paper conservation by approaching the treatment of canvas supports in the same ways that paper conservators treat their cellulose-based supports. They also brought the Getty onboard, since their history of using scientific research to inform and support treatment made them the ideal partner for investigating the material aspects of the painting, necessary vs. superfluous components of various treatment steps, and the longterm success and effects of the treatment itself. The Getty’s spacious private terraces and steady supply of California sunshine also proved to be very beneficial!

I will leave the details of the treatment to be more rightly and thoroughly covered in Krueger’s contributions to the postprints, but the essential process is an adaptation of the aqueous sun-bleaching technique used in paper conservation. The painting (mounted to a working strainer) is positioned on an incline, completely dampened and held in a steady flow of water, in full sun. By treating the canvas as the homogenous material it is, you avoid the problems of trying to control the movement and activity of water as applied locally, and instead appropriate and better exploit those same properties to our (and the painting’s) benefit.

Significantly, the extraordinarily successful treatment uncovered secondary damage caused by those previous localized attempts at canvas cleaning/stain reduction: after aqueous sun-bleaching (which in and of itself could not overclean the canvas), these were visible as noticeably lighter patches of canvas which then had to be toned back. Additionally, the project included investigation of whether the treatment had material as well as aesthetic benefits. Paper conservators report that paper supports are stronger after washing, and there was some thought that washed canvases could show similar improvement. Alan Phenix ran tensile strength and color change tests on canvas after washing and sun-bleaching. The canvas did show some improvement in strength, and both washing and sun-bleaching helped prolong the life of the canvas by removing damaging degradation products.

Krueger’s talk forms a natural trio with two others given at this year’s conference: Maggie Barkovic and Olympia Diamond’s “Pioneering Solutions for Treating Water Stains on Acrylic Paintings: Case Study of Composition, 1963, by Justin Knowles” and Jonathan Ashley-Smith’s “What’s so ethical about doing nothing?”. Barkovic and Diamond’s presentation highlighted their successful treatment of a similarly damaged painting using a modified agar gel, and their different approach emphasizes (as Krueger himself did) that aqueous sunbleaching is not suitable for all paintings (the Knowles’ canvas is sized, unlike Louis’ 133). Ashley-Smith’s provoking contemplation of the future of conservation elegantly pointed out that an overemphasis on minimal intervention can, and has had, unintended consequences; one of these is unknowingly damaging the pieces themselves. By being so risk averse as to avoid treatments that seem unnecessarily invasive, are we in fact contributing to the degradation of the works we are charged to care for? Although the pendulum swing towards minimal intervention and preventive conservation is understandable, these talks serve as a valuable reminder to continue to explore new treatment methodologies supported by our increasing wealth of collaborative knowledge and technical advancement.

45th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, June 1, “A Colonial Portrait and a Mystery,” by Rustin Levinson.

Rusty Levinson’s talk was perfectly fitting as the final Paintings Specialty Group presentation. The talk was informative and had some levity and humor to boot.

The portrait (see an auction photo before treatment at left), treated and researched by ArtCare Miami with technical analysis by Emily MacDonald Korth, has been believed to depict Button Gwinnett, one of the three Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence. This identification was not certain, and the inscription on the reverse identifying the artist and sitter, was suspect. Moreover, it appeared to be written in two different hands. The inscription is visible through a cut-out window in the lining fabric left by an old restorer. Gwinnett had a short-lived political career before dying in a duel the year after signing the momentous document. Recently, a signature of his came to auction and fetched over $700,000 in its sale, reaching an all-time high price for a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. This event brought this historic figure some current-day notoriety, captured by Stephen Colbert on the Late Show last year, which coincidentally appeared during the treatment and research of the portrait. Colbert and Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda performed “Button!” on the Late Show after an interview with Miranda. The “Button!” rap-style performance in costume is a spoof off Hamilton, and it is hilarious. You can view it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFeQSBZUSk. It is definitely worth a watch! I have never experienced such a hearty laugh during an AIC presentation.

One of the goals in the analysis, research, and treatment of this portrait was to help determine whether the picture likely did in fact depict Mr. Gwinnett. The painting was covered in old varnish and different campaigns of overpaint, making it difficult to compare the likeness with a known, earlier portrait of Gwinnett by British artist Nathaniel Hone (see image at left). The painting in ArtCare’s studio was attributed to Jeremiah Theus, a Swiss-born portrait painter who

worked primarily in and around Charleston, SC. Charleston was known as Charles Town until 1783. This fact creates one of the problems with the inscription, which identifies the city as Charleston, postdating the date of the portrait, which would have been before Theus’ death in 1774. Another issue with the inscription(s) was the presence of modern pigments, identified through analysis, that were part of a red layer on the canvas reverse that lies beneath the inscription(s). Zinc was identified in that layer, thus discrediting the coating as well as the overlying inscription as original to the piece. It is possible that the two inscriptions were written at some point(s) in the past, perhaps early in the life of the painting, but were later reinforced by a restorer.

Scientific analysis was conducted using a variety of techniques including cross-sectional analysis, XRF, PLM or polarized light microscopy, and optical microscopy. The results revealed typical pigments used by mid-18^th c. American painters along with modern pigments appearing in overpaint and coatings. Elemental analysis helped identify the pigments vermilion, a lead-based pigment, a chromium-based pigment, and zinc white on the painting, while on the verso, the presence of lead, calcium, and copper were detected, and vermilion and zinc white were identified. Part of the historical research involved looking at archival information about the Theus portrait. One such document was created when Sheldon Keck was asked to examine the portrait in the 1950s. At this time, Keck declared the portrait a “genuine eighteenth century painting.”

Once cleaned the painting was compared with the Hone portrait of Gwinnett and similarities in facial features were noted. Levinson toyed with an online program to attempt to visually age the face in the Hone picture. This rudimentary program, while somewhat amusing, was not revealing. A chance connection with someone from the Georgia Bureau of investigation led to a visual comparison by the Bureau whereby they did a much higher tech, digital rendering of the earlier Hone portrait to artifically age the figure’s face, and they made a comparison with the treated picture. They determined it was plausible that the sitters were the same man.

I wish there had been a bit more discussion on the artist attribution question. Even though the focus was not on the artist, I had hoped for a bit more information on the portrait’s attribution to Jeremiah Theus, particularly since I encounter Jeremiah Theus portraits in my private practice. I would have liked to know more about the connoisseurship used in the attribution, whether/which art historians may have looked at the portrait, and/or whether any of the technical analysis was compared to that of other known Theus portraits. Finally, I also would have enjoyed more discussion of the treatment, as it was somewhat glossed over. A few before and after shots side by side, including details of areas of heavy overpaint before and after with a little more discussion of the overpaint removal, would have been welcome additions to this presentation.

44th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, 16 May 2016, “Bocour paints and Barnett Newman paintings: context and correlations,” by Dr. Corina Rogge and Bradford Epley

Installation view of Barnett Newman: The Late Work, The Menil Collection, March 27-August 2, 2015. Image found here.

Barnett Newman was fairly private about his technique, and until recently, much less was known about his methods and materials than many other artists from the same era. Over the last few years, Dr. Corina Rogge and Bradford Epley have conducted an extensive study of Newman’s technique centered on the 2015 Menil Collection exhibit Barnett Newman: The Late Work, which included paintings drawn from the Menil and collections across the United States and Europe. By analyzing each of the paintings brought together for the show along with studio materials and Newman ephemera, the Menil team were able to learn a great deal about Newman’s working method, and Dr. Rogge’s presentation on the second day of the PSG sessions explored his loyal use of paints produced by Leonard Bocour.

Phillip Pearlstein, Leonard Bocour, 1966. Image from: http://philippearlstein.com/portrait-oil-1960s/wwtb3r20xfzsy40q37iajw3hz8wema — Phillip Pearlstein, *Leonard Bocour*, 1966. Image found here.

Bocour began producing paint in the early 1930s, opening a storefront in Manhattan which quickly became a hang-out spot for AbEx artists. In 1947, Bocour Artist Colors introduced the solvent-borne acrylic Magna, and in 1963, the water-borne acrylic Aqua-Tec, which was a favorite of Newman’s. In addition to these and other lines, Bocour often produced bespoke colors for his artists, and Newman himself often hand-mixed pigments and other additives into Bocour paints, complicating the issue when trying to understand which paints are present on Newman’s various works.
Dr. Rogge highlighted some of the idiosyncrasies of Bocour’s paints, such as the fact that the names of colors don’t necessarily correspond to the actual colorants in the paint. For instance, she found that Bocour Hand Ground Oil Ultramarine Red was colored with manganese violet pigment, while his Bellini Oil Colors Cobalt Blue was actually ultramarine. Generally, these misleading names aren’t too much of an issue, but in certain colors synthetic organic dyes – which Bocour referred to as “toners” – were added, and this is where things get dicey. His so-called cadmium colors like red and yellow contained a mixture of (not necessarily cadmium-based) inorganic pigments and organic dyes, which causes them to be light-sensitive and susceptible to fading or color shifts. She also found that the paint formulas went through changes in their colorants, binders, and additives over their years of production, and offered this handy tip: the address listed on the tube will indicate the period from which it originates – Bocour tubes initially listed simply “New York City,” and then, in 1943, there’s the addition of a two-letter postal zone, and the addition of the newly created five-digit zip code in 1963-64.

Hans Namuth, Barnett Newman in his studio, 1952. Image from: http://henrimag.com/blog1/?p=6402 — Hans Namuth, *Barnett Newman in his studio*, 1952. Image found here.

The Menil team collaborated with the National Gallery to analyze the historic Bocour materials in their Art Materials Research and Study Center, and with Harvard Art Museum’s Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art to analyze the Newman studio paints in their collection. They also received a timely gift: sculptor Robert Murray, a friend and sometimes studio assistant of Newman’s, was an invited lecturer and guest at the Menil symposium accompanying the exhibition of Newman’s late works. Murray then donated to the Menil paints from Newman’s studio, including many Bocour products. By analyzing the pigment ratios of Newman’s hand-mixed additions to the standard Bocour colors, Dr. Rogge was able to group certain paintings together as having been created at the same time.
Rogge and Epley’s broad study of Barnett Newman’s work has benefitted from some excellent collaboration and has highlighted the great value of our national study centers for historic artists’ materials. Their study is allowing scholars to understand the chronology and evolution of his late works, many of which were simply found in his studio after his passing. Her presentation emphasized the fact that the apparent aesthetic simplicity of Newman’s canvases belies not only the surprising complexity of his working method but also his fervent commitment to technical excellence and the physical longevity of his work.

AIC 44th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, May 15, “The Painting Materials and Techniques of J.E.H. MacDonald: Oil Sketches from 1909-1922” presented by Kate Helwig, Senior Conservation Scientist at CCI, and Alison Douglas, Conservator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection

Conservation scientists at the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) continue to examine artists’ works and contribute each year to the growing database of information on Canadian artists’ working methods and materials.
One of their latest projects is the characterization of the materials used by painter J.E.H. MacDonald (1873-1932). The study looks at the supports, grounds and paint formulations MacDonald used during the period 1909-1922. This study compliments an important retrospective of the artist’s work planned for 2018 at the McMichael Collection of Canadian Art.
MacDonald was a founding member of the famed cohort of Canadian landscape painters known as the Group of Seven, and was closely associated with the celebrated painters, Lawren Harris and Tom Thomson
In all, 32 works from Ontario museum collections were examined, comprising 11 oil paintings and 21 oil sketches. The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding of the artist’s working methods and materials, and to assemble some reference data to help attribute works of uncertain date or origin. This particular presentation focused on observations and results from 13 of these works.
Throughout the period under study, MacDonald used a variety of rigid painting supports, including fiberboard, pulpboard, laminated pulpboard, and thin bookbinder’s board, which may have been his preferred support.
The study reveals that there was a shift in the size of the support he favoured through this period. Early works before 1914 were varied in size, often small, less than 7 x 9 inches. Through the years 1914-1917, he often chose a standard 8 x 10 inch format, and after 1918 he chose a slightly larger size, 8.5 x 10.5 inches, which was also the size favoured by his friend Tom Thomson, who died mysteriously in 1917.
This change in size of the support was also paralleled by a gradual change in his preparatory layers and painting technique. A variety of materials were found in the grounds of his early works. Sometimes he employed coloured double grounds. After 1918, he abandoned traditional grounds, preferring simply to seal the board surfaces with shellac. It was noted that this layer could prove to be solvent-sensitive during future varnish removal operations.
There was a gradual shift in his painting technique as well: his palette changed from muted colours, layered wet into wet, to a bolder paint application. By 1918 in his Algoma paintings, the brushstrokes are more confident and vigorous, often applied using complimentary-coloured paint strokes. An interesting feature of these works is the fact he often left the support or underlayers visible at the edges of his brushstrokes. Bold outlines of oil paint underdrawing are also sometimes seen through the brush strokes of the upper layers of paint.
Paint pigments and fillers were also characterized for the paintings and sketches studied. MacDonald’s paints were generally complex mixtures made of multiple colours, composed of 2 or 3 main colours, adjusted by the presence of small amounts of 2 or 3 more colours. A distinguishing element of his favoured palette include a characteristic mixture of lead sulfate and zinc oxide for his whites – a mixture that was commonly used by Tom Thomson and members of the Group of Seven. This particular white is likely the new “Flake White” paint manufactured by the renowned British colourmen, Madderton & Co. (founded by A.P. Laurie) used for its Cambridge Colours paints that were sold worldwide in the first three decades of the 20^th century. Viridian was the only truly green pigment the artist used, while various blues and yellows were also combined to make other shades of green. Yellows, blacks, reds and blues were also characterized. Of interest is the bright yellow paint, likely a Winsor and Newton tube paint, since it contained chrome yellow and a magnesium carbonate filler, materials not found together in the Cambridge paints line.
The publication of this information on MacDonald’s materials will be a welcome contribution to the advancement of our knowledge of the artist’s working methods. This information will also be essential as scientists begin to examine and ponder the materials used in a controversial group of small oil sketches that were purportedly buried for decades on the artist’s estate, before they finally entered (in recent months) the collection of a major Canadian institution. Tip of the iceberg indeed…

42 Annual Meeting-Joint Session: Paintings and Wooden Artifacts, May 31st, "Modern Materials and Practice in Gilding Conservation", Hubert Baija

Hubert Baija, Senior Conservator of Frames and Gilding, has been responsible for overseeing the conservation of the frame collection at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam since 1990. Numbering over 7000 frames that are now accessioned and inventoried as works of art in their own right, Baija has had the opportunity to treat frames of different styles and condition issues. During his presentation, he discussed three treatments. He emphasized the need for close study and observation of the original materials, understanding the appearance and intended effect created by the frames in their original lighting situations, and choosing reversible materials in a creative way. He noted that a treatment need not be overly involved to successfully reintegrate the gilding.
His first case study was the treatment of a Louis XVI oval frame (1777-89) that was original to the portrait it framed. The discussion addressed the past practice of covering worn gilding with bronze paint, that later had been retoned with a dark glue/pigment layer to match the discolored bronze. These layers significantly altered the intended appearance of the frame, by negating the play of dark, light, and reflectance across the complex surface. Baija demonstrated that by removing the glue and bronze paint layers (using simple solvent mixtures), only a minimal amount of inpainting was necessary to reintegrate the gilded surface. While the improvement to the frame was impressive, the appearance of the painting when displayed in the frame was also significantly improved by the intervention.
Baija’s second example demonstrated his skill as an artisan, his keen observation, and his determined investigation of a little know technique that had previously been overlooked. He stylistically identified a pair of auricular frames carved from lindenwood to c.1660-1665. Both frames had significant worm damage, had lost smaller portions of carved decoration, and were overpainted and overgilded. Only small areas of the original gilding remained intact–between 5 and 30%.
The original gilding was done using a type of mordant gilding that is not known from historical texts and has not been identified before. Using SEM-EDX imaging of cross sections, the technique was characterized: the bare wood was prepared for gilding using a thick glue layer (1 mm Th), followed by a pigmented emulsion layer, to which the gilding was applied.
Noting that the tradition of gilding in the Netherlands had been lost since the 1580s, and that more traditional (and stable) gilding techniques would not be reintroduced to the Netherlands until later in the 17^th century by French Huguenots, Baija surmised that this unusual technique was in use—only in the Netherlands–for a relatively short period of time. After his initial characterization of the technique on these frames, he has since identified other examples on Dutch frames and furniture that are stylistically dated to 1650-1680. Because the technique was inherently unstable given the response of the thick glue layer to changes in humidity, many pieces gilded using this technique have subsequently been overgilded.
After cleaning the frames of non-original layers, the carved losses to the wood were reconstructed using paper mâché /methyl cellulose mixture, mixed with water. The material can be handled like clay to buildup the appropriate forms. The paper mâché shrinks slightly, allowing for application of Modostuc finishing layer. Because an isolating layer of Paraloid B-72 had been applied to the original wood surface, the paper mâché fill remains easily reversible. Shallower losses were also filled with Modostuc.
Most creative was Baija’s approach to inpainting to create the illusion of distressed gilding. Noting that the original thick glue layer would only be very slowly soluble in water, gouache was chosen to provide a brown base tone over areas of lost gilding and structural reconstruction. Islands of worn gilding were recreated using mica pigments mixed with Schminke watercolors, masterfully creating the illusion of a worn gilded surface. Final toning was done using ethanol soluble dyes in Mowilith 20. Toning could also be done using Gamblin Conservation Colors, PVA, etc. Coincidently, the dating of the frames was confirmed and the paintings and frames temporarily reunited, when an early 20^thC. photograph of the frames paired with their original paintings was identified. The paintings are signed and dated 1661.
In his final example, Baija described an approach to reintegrating an area of loss in the gilding on a panel painting by Lorenzo Monaco, Stigmata of St Francis, c.1420. The area of damage was on a stepped join that was filled using Modostuc and prepared for gilding with acrylic bole from the Kolner system. Baija emphasized the importance of selecting a gold that was the correct color, but lighter in tone than the final appearance needed. He noted that any toning layers/coatings would take away from the intended appearance of the gilding—imitation of solid gold. By simply inscribing the cracks in the newly gilded loss, using horizontal lines to disrupt the vertical disruption of the loss, the gilding was effectively knocked back to the correct tone. Minor glazes to create the effect of dirt in the cracks were then applied.
Each of these treatments demonstrated issues that are common to conservation of gilded objects. Gilded surfaces are often overgilded or painted with bronze paint to recreate the impression of gold. Alternatively, gilded surfaces tend to be toned dark, either to reintegrate corroded bronze paint or to tone back gold that may seem too garish or is disrupted in other ways.
Baija’s approach is one that brings back the appreciation of frames as works of art, rather than as just accessories to paintings. It emphasizes the need to understand the original and aged appearance of the gilding, and to recover what is left of the original. His approach is one that acknowledges the frames—like objects and paintings–should be treated in reversible ways, using conservation materials distinguishable from the original materials. It thereby breaks from the traditional approach of regilding frames using traditional materials and techniques. He encourages the exploration of new materials, the use of reversible layering systems, and acknowledging the patina of time and use. An overall theme of the talk was one of reintegrating the gilding only to the level of the best-preserved area of original gilding.
For those interested in furthering their understanding of gilding and approaches to gilding restoration, Baija teaches two workshops at the Campbell Center in Mt Carroll, Illinois. “Traditional Gilding” and “Gilding Restoration” combine lecture and practical work in the studio. I attended both workshops over the last two summers, and as a result have improved my treatment approach for gilded frames. I highly recommend them.