{"id":15050,"date":"2016-06-17T19:09:01","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T00:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/?p=15050"},"modified":"2016-06-17T19:09:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T00:09:01","slug":"44th-annual-meeting-paintings-session-may-15-2016-the-history-technical-study-and-treatment-of-francis-bacons-painting-1946-by-ellen-davis-michael-duffy-chr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2016\/06\/17\/44th-annual-meeting-paintings-session-may-15-2016-the-history-technical-study-and-treatment-of-francis-bacons-painting-1946-by-ellen-davis-michael-duffy-chr\/","title":{"rendered":"44th Annual Meeting \u2013 Paintings Session, May 15, 2016, \u201cThe History, Technical Study, and Treatment of Francis Bacon\u2019s Painting 1946\u201d by Ellen Davis, Michael Duffy, Chris McGlinchey, and Lauren Klein"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am interested in artists\u2019 involvement with the conservation of their pieces, and I love Francis Bacon\u2019s paintings so I was happy when I saw that this presentation needed a blogger.
\nFrancis Bacon considered Painting 1946 <\/em>to be a break-through work.\u00a0 It was purchased by MoMA in1948 two years after it was painted.\u00a0 Because Bacon used pastel ground in water as well as oil paint, the painting almost immediately had issues with the media flaking and fading.
\nIn 1959 and again in 1971 Bacon proposed scraping down the pastel and repainting the background.\u00a0 In 1959 the museum was interested in this option, but for unclear reasons, Bacon did not end up reworking the piece.\u00a0 In 1971 before Bacon\u2019s retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris, Bacon again offered to repaint the background.\u00a0 This time MoMA did not want the artist to address the issues with his piece, but agreed that the painting needed conservation.
\nBefore the Paris retrospective, conservator Jean Volker consolidated with gelatin and inpainted with crushed pastel.\u00a0 Francis Bacon was thrilled with the results and believed that the painting had been given a new life.\u00a0 He decided that he even liked the faded colors better.
\nOver the years, the pastel inpainting faded and no longer matched the original, gelatin consolidation residues turned gray, and there was continued flaking.\u00a0 The painting again needed treatment. Given Bacon\u2019s satisfaction with the 1971 results, it was decided that the goal should be to return the piece to its post-1971 treatment state, but using more stable materials.
\nEllen Davis\u2019 treatment involved removing the gelatin aqueously through tissue followed by silicone solvent cyclomethicone D5 (to avoid tide lines).\u00a0 Lifting paint was consolidated with TRI-Funori.\u00a0 Where possible the faded inpainting was reduced mechanically. The new inpainting was carried out with more light-fast pastels.
\nAs Davis noted at the end of her presentation, this painting can only be as stable as its original materials.\u00a0 It is fortunate that it is in a collection where it can be carefully monitored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am interested in artists\u2019 involvement with the conservation of their pieces, and I love Francis Bacon\u2019s paintings so I was happy when I saw that this presentation needed a blogger. Francis Bacon considered Painting 1946 to be a break-through work.\u00a0 It was purchased by MoMA in1948 two years after it was painted.\u00a0 Because Bacon … Continue reading “44th Annual Meeting \u2013 Paintings Session, May 15, 2016, \u201cThe History, Technical Study, and Treatment of Francis Bacon\u2019s Painting 1946\u201d by Ellen Davis, Michael Duffy, Chris McGlinchey, and Lauren Klein”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":293,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34,16],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-15050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-paintings","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-44th-annual-meeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/293"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}