{"id":5128,"date":"2012-07-31T15:09:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T20:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/?p=5128"},"modified":"2012-07-31T15:09:14","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T20:09:14","slug":"jackson-pollocks-mural-arrives-at-gettys-conservation-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2012\/07\/31\/jackson-pollocks-mural-arrives-at-gettys-conservation-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural’ arrives at Getty’s conservation lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

Excerpt from the LA Times, by Christopher Knight<\/p>\n

“Mural,” the critically important painting in\u00a0Jackson Pollock’s development as a major American artist, has arrived in the conservation lab at the\u00a0J. Paul Getty Museum. A visit Wednesday to see the monumental 1943 canvas, which is in the collection of the University of Iowa\u00a0Museum of Art, shows why conservation work is imperative.<\/p>\n

What the artist called “a stampede” of shapes, lines of force and rhythmic colors across the canvas had a profound effect on American art, sweeping away the nativist ethos of his mentor, Thomas Hart Benton.<\/p>\n

But a pronounced sag can now be seen in the center of the painting at the top. Unframed, “Mural” is roughly 8 feet tall and 20 feet wide. The downward weight in the middle is pulling up the bottom edges of the canvas at the right and left. Rather than a wide rectangle, “Mural” is showing modest but clear signs of a broad, downward curve.<\/p>\n

What caused the sagging? At some point, a new lining on the back was added to reinforce the canvas. Re-lining, a common procedure, employed a wax adhesive. Given the picture’s size, considerable weight was added to the painting.<\/p>\n

Museum conservators will work with scientists at the Getty Conservation Institute to determine how to rectify the problem. They also plan to remove a layer of varnish from the painting’s surface, apparently added in the 1970s, which creates a slight sheen.<\/p>\n

Tests will also be done to catalog the paints Pollock employed. It might even be possible to figure out whether the legend that says Pollock painted “Mural” in a single day is valid. Drying times for paint layers, many of which are visibly crisp and clean and plainly were not painted wet-on-wet, might yield clues.<\/p>\n

Read the complete article in the Los Angeles Times here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Jackson Pollock's "Mural"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excerpt from the LA Times, by Christopher Knight “Mural,” the critically important painting in\u00a0Jackson Pollock’s development as a major American artist, has arrived in the conservation lab at the\u00a0J. Paul Getty Museum. A visit Wednesday to see the monumental 1943 canvas, which is in the collection of the University of Iowa\u00a0Museum of Art, shows why … Continue reading “Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural’ arrives at Getty’s conservation lab”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":5353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128","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\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}