Displaying items by tag: conservation

On June 10, 2013, Bank of America announced the recipients of its 2013 Art Conservation Project. The program provides grant funding to international nonprofit museums to conserve historically and culturally significant works of art that are in danger of deterioration.

This year, Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project will provide funding for 24 works in 16 countries. One of the most significant undertakings is the restoration of Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles. Built between 1921 and 1953, the Watts Towers are an iconic part of the city and have fallen into disrepair. The towers are part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Other projects include the restoration of Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 1A, One, and Echo at the Museum of Modern Art; 13 mural drawings by Diego Rivera (1886-1957) at the Detroit Institute of Arts; four Tudor paintings at the National Portrait Gallery in London; a Rembrandt (1606-1669) study at the National Gallery in Prague; and a Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) photography collection at La Casa Azul in Mexico.    

Bank of America launched its Art Conservation Project in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in 2010. It was expanded to include the Americas, Asia, and Australia in 2012. Including this year’s recipients, Bank of America will have funded the conservation of 57 projects in 25 countries.

The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) at Old Salem Museums & Gardens have embarked on a five-year collaboration that will involve extended reciprocal loans. The institutions got a head start on their agreement with the joint exhibition Painters and Paintings in the Early American South, which is currently on view at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. Nine major paintings from MESDA’s collection are part of the exhibition while several objects from the Art Museums of Williamsburg’s holdings are already on view at MESDA.

The objects involved in the reciprocal loan agreement include clocks, high chests, paintings, silver coffee pots, and much more. Many of the objects from MESDA’s collection on loan to Colonial Williamsburg will be presented as part of the long-term exhibition A Rich and Varied Culture: The Material World of the Early South, which is expected to go on view at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, one of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, in January 2014. The show will present a range of furniture, silver, ceramics, textiles, tools, machines, and architectural elements.

Ronald L. Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg’s vice president for collections, conservation, and museums and the Carlisle H. Humelsine chief curator, said, “This is the age of partnerships. With partnerships everyone wins: the institutions, the public, the scholarly world…so why not do it? Both [the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg and MESDA] have some remarkable objects temporarily off view. Why not show them at a sister institution?”

San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) broke ground on its highly anticipated expansion on Wednesday, May 29, 2013. Around 300 supporters gathered to witness the kick-off of the construction project that will add 225,000-square-feet to the museum. The renovated space is expected to reopen in 2016.

 Snøhetta, an international architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design firm based in Oslo, Norway and New York City, designed SFMOMA’s expansion, which is expected to cost around $610 million. 89% of the capital has already been collected through fundraising. Officials upped their original estimate for construction from $555 million in May.

 SFMOMA’s expansion will more than double the existing exhibition space and provide nearly six times as much public space as their currently Mario Botta-designed building. The renovation will create a new outdoor terrace, a sculpture terrace, and state-of-the-art conservation studios. The museum will also take a more environmentally sensitive approach to day-to-day operations. SFMOMA hopes to gain LEED Gold certification by reducing their energy costs, water use, and wastewater generation.

On April 2, 2013, the exhibition Japanese Masterpieces will open in Osaka, Japan. The show, which was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston, is in the midst of a 15-month tour of Japan. Works on view include a 1,300-year-old Buddhist painting; rare folding screens; treasured Japanese scroll paintings; and many other rare works. While all of the objects are part of the MFA’s illustrious collection of Japanese art, the exhibition will not be shown in Boston. In fact, many of the works from the museum’s impressive collection remain out of the public’s view.

The MFA does present a selection of their Japanese art holdings on a rotating basis in their galleries, but limited display space and the works’ sensitivity to light means a large portion the collection remains in storage. While the museum did mount a new display of Japanese art in January 2013, when the works from Japanese Masterpieces return to Boston this summer, they will not be exhibited.

The MFA began working on Japanese Masterpieces over 15 years ago when a number of Japanese scholars traveled to the MFA to work with the museum’s curators. The team analyzed the MFA’s Japanese art collection and launched a significant conservation project, which was geared at the current show. Japanese Masterpieces was organized in collaboration with the Tokyo National Museum and has been on view at three venues so far. Attendance has already surpassed one million visitors. The show will be on view in Osaka through June 16, 2013.

Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum is now on view at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. The exhibition presents over 100 drawings and sketchbooks from the museum’s collection, many of which have rarely been seen.

Fine Lines features works created between 1768 and 1945 and includes drawings by more than 70 artists such as John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), Stuart Davis (1892-1964), Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), William Glackens (1870-1938), Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Eastman Johnson (1824-1906), Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), and John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).

Fine Lines is organized into six categories and draws connections between artists from varying periods and artistic styles. Topics explored in the six sections are portraiture; the nude; the clothed figure; narrative subjects; natural landscapes; urban landscapes; and conservation techniques.

Fine Lines will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum through May 26, 2013.

Henry Moore’s (1898-1986) severely damaged sculpture Knife Edge Two Piece (1965) will finally be restored according to the Parliamentary Art Collection. The sculpture, which is prominently displays outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, is England’s most revered work by the British sculptor.

Moore and the Contemporary Art Society donated Knife Edge Two Piece to England in 1967 but the work fell into disrepair after administrative changes left it with no legal owner. Eventually, the British government suggested that the House of Commons take ownership for the sculpture and that the Parliamentary Art Collection take responsibility for the its care.

The bronze sculpture, which is marred by discoloration, deterioration, and incised graffiti, will undergo conservation beginning February 16, 2013. Conservator Rupert Harris will lead the effort, which involves removing the sculpture’s protective lacquer and abrading its surface to eliminate the damage. The work will then be repatinated and treated with wax in order to protect it from future environmental damage.

The conservation project is expected to cost a little over $50,000 with most of the funding coming from the Parliamentary Art Collection. The Henry Moore Foundation will contribute about $17,000 to the effort. The Knife Edge Two Piece restoration project is expected to reach completion at the end of March 2013.

For the first time in nearly 500 years, a pair of portraits of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, will be hung together. Officials from the National Portrait Gallery in London spotted the rare, early portrait of Catherine while on a research visit to Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

While the sitter in the Palace’s portrait was originally believed to be Henry VIII’s last wife, Catherine Parr, the National Portrait Gallery’s conservation and curatorial experts noticed that the facial features, costume, and the painting’s frame suggested that the portrait was actually of Catherine of Aragon. Lambeth Palace officials agreed to loan the painting of Catherine of Aragon to the National Portrait Gallery where it has been researched extensively and has undergone conservation treatment before being displayed starting today, January 25, 2013. Technical analysis of the painting and frame, which included x-ray and raking light, revealed links between the Lambeth portrait and the Gallery’s portrait of Henry VIII from around 1520, supporting the belief that the sitter was in fact Catherine of Aragon.

Dr. Charlotte Bolland, Project Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, said, “It is wonderful to have the opportunity to display this important early portrait of Catherine of Aragon at the Gallery. Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon were married for nearly 24 years and during that time their portrait would have been displayed together in this fashion, as king and queen of England.”

A monumental frieze made between 1909 and 1916 by Edvard Munch (1863-1944) adorns the walls of the University of Oslo’s assembly hall in Norway. The frieze, which includes 11 different Expressionist paintings, underwent a lengthy restoration and conservation process a last year. However, just 20 months after the project was completed, the frieze might be at risk.

Tine Frøysaker, a Norwegian conservator and professor at the University of Oslo, announced that while the exterior of the building that houses the frieze is being restored, harmful dust and debris could be damaging Munch’s masterpiece. Frøysaker, who worked on the frieze, explained that the plaster that is being knocked off the building’s exterior is releasing particles that contain alkaline, which is highly abrasive. If these particles come in contact with the frieze, which is likely since the building is old and impossible to seal off, the paintings could be damaged. Steps have been taken to lessen any impairment by increasing the building’s internal air pressure, which will hopefully keep most particles out of the building.

Frøysaker said that this potentially harmful situation could have been avoided if the exterior restoration was completed before tackling the Munch frieze inside. Work on the building’s exterior is expected to finish during the summer of 2013. Upon completion, conservators will need to assess the paintings to determine if additional restoration is needed.

While a lot of time, thought, and care goes into the creation of exhibition catalogues, their lifespans tends to be short-lived. Unhappy with this accepted cycle, Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, decided to change things. The Museum’s new online resource, MetPublications, allows users to browse more than 600 catalogues, journals, and museum bulletins, including 368 out-of-print publications. It will even be possible to get copies of 140 of those out-of-print catalogues along with paperbound editions with digitally printed color reproductions through Yale University Press.

Spanning from 1964 to the present, topics covered include art, art history, archaeology, conservation, and collecting. MetPublications includes a description and table of contents for almost all of the periodicals and even offers information about the authors, reviews of the books, and links to related publications and art in the museum’s collection. The comprehensive resource will also provide links to purchase in-print books. If a reader is in need of a book but is not close to the museum or the book is not in the Museum’s holdings, MetPublications will direct them to WorldCat, a global library catalogue. Over time, the Met plans to add publications dating as far back as 1870, when then the museum was founded.

While other museums such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Los Angeles County of Museum of Art already have scholarly resources online, it is a welcome addition to the Met’s offerings.

Scaffolding still blocks the view of Auguste Rodin’s monumental "Gates of Hell" at the entrance to Philadelphia's Rodin Museum. And Rodin's famous sculpture of the "Burghers of Calais" has yet to be cleaned up.

But the museum has undergone a $9 million renovation and is once again open to the public.