Paintings conservator Cynthia Luk and objects/textile conservator Allison McCloskey recently spent a week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia leading a workshop on restoration techniques for Asian fabric paintings and offering advice on conservation issues. The June trip was part of an ongoing, multi-year exchange program in which WACC is providing training and consultation to Mongolian conservators and cultural institutions. The workshop was held at the Center for Cultural Heritage, home of Mongolia’s chief conservation facility.
The program is funded by grants from the Trust for Mutual Understanding and the Asian Cultural Council.
With the aid of a translator, Luk led seven conservators in intensive morning sessions on techniques applicable to Mongolian thangka paintings, religious artworks traditionally done on cotton or silk. Initial classes covered treatment of the water-based paints typical of thangkas, and the final session was given to description and demonstration of cold-lining techniques. Unfortunately, materials needed for an actual lining could not be transported from Williamstown due to flammability issues. Instead, mock-ups prepared at WACC provided the visual lessons needed for the class.
Addressing some of the preservation needs of the textile elements of thangka paintings, McCloskey demonstrated the consolidation of shattered silk using an ultrasonic mister. Silk is “shattered” when it becomes fragile to the point of disintegration; a fragment treated in Williamstown was offered as an example of the treatment. McCloskey also demonstrated discreet tear mends, and suggested ways to employ sheer fabrics to repair and strengthen damaged textiles. McCloskey also advised on issues related to a thangka damaged by mold.
There is no formal conservation education available in Mongolia, so conservators rely on workshops to increase their professional training. The workshop emphasized hands-on exercises to give the Asian conservators opportunity to put theory into practice. “The universal thing about conservation,” McCloskey said, “ is that you can talk about something until you’re blue in the face, but demonstrations make everybody start nodding their heads. Conservators are a very visual bunch.”
Perhaps the biggest contribution Western conservators bring to Mongolia is a depth of education fostered by books and advanced materials. “There is little that separates Mongolian conservators from us, except for our exposure to these materials and literature,” said McCloskey. “They’re limited by their access to these things, but the work they do is very impressive.”
This is the fourth time WACC has worked with Mongolian institutions. In 2007, Williamstown conservators toured the country’s artistic and historic heritage. A Mongolian delegation visited Williamstown in 2008, and in March, 2009, two conservators from the country were in residence at WACC for a month.
Luk is especially pleased about the opportunity the exchange offers to forge relationships that go beyond formal training.
“Generally a conservation grant has one framework,” Luk noted. “It’s not the people as much as the artifact or the site or the preservation.” The current project, by contrast, “is about relationships. The continuity allows you to build on what you’ve taught before.”
In addition to the work on thangkas, Luk and McCloskey provided extensive observation and consultation on other matters; Luk made recommendations on the treatment of more than nine hundred paintings damaged by fire while in storage at a local museum, while McCloskey advised textile conservators on restoration of three 10 th-to-12th-century burial cloaks. She will conduct tests on samples of the cloak fabric at the WACC analytical lab to determine further action.
Luk, who coordinates international projects for WACC, will seek funding to continue the Mongolian exchange. She envisions a two-year program covering the spectrum of possible thangka treatments, from traditional techniques by paper conservators and Asian specialists to new collaborations between paintings and textile conservators. Luk also hopes to return to Ulaanbaatar to consult and assist in the restoration of the fire-damaged paintings, many of which are national treasures. TOP
A short documentary about the treatment of a Norman Rockwell drawing at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center is now available on the Internet video site YouTube (http://tinyurl.com/msxuk9). The film, produced by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts for an exhibition there, features WACC chief paper conservator Leslie Paisley treating a six-foot charcoal drawing by Rockwell titled United Nations.
The nine-minute film follows Paisley as she cleans and repairs the 28 by 74 ¼ inch charcoal and pencil drawing, created as the final study for a painting Rockwell never realized. The highly detailed 1953 drawing is a group portrait of some sixty-five men, women and children representing a cross-section of the world’s races and nationalities. The film gives viewers a glimpse into several of the processes, issues and practices related to the complex operation of treating a fragile artwork on paper.
The drawing was brought to the Center for cleaning and repair in advance of its exhibition at the Rockwell Museum. It had long been in storage and arrived framed, mounted on cardboard and stapled to a plywood support. It was obvious that the artist had treated the study as a working document, with little concern for its permanence. In addition to fifty-five years of grime, the work showed creases, warping and buckling caused by the moisture and uneven drying of three different glues and adhesives used by Rockwell to adhere the heavy-weight paper to a cardboard backing. The film watches over Paisley’s shoulder as she releases the work from its mounting, at first with a screwdriver and needle-nosed pliers to lift staples from the plywood, then with a small spatula and scalpel to painstakingly scrape adhered cardboard from the back of the paper. The documentary’s most dramatic moment follows Paisley as she lifts a large section of the drawing by two corners, slowly removing it from a tray of deionized water. This aqueous treatment, made possible by the large amount of fixative Rockwell applied to the work, was undertaken after extensive testing to confirm that the charcoal medium would not be affected by submersion. In all, the brief documentary condenses more than 100 hours of work into nine minutes and 17 seconds. Rockwell abandoned United Nations before beginning his planned painting, but in 1961 revisited many of the figures in the drawing for a Saturday Evening Post cover illustration titled Golden Rule. That painting, which is on display in the exhibit, was eventually reproduced on a series of mosaic tiles and installed at the UN.
The documentary was filmed and edited by the Rockwell Museum’s Jeremy Clowe, with the assistance of Martin Mahoney, manager of collections and registration. It is on continuous view in the exhibition, "Conserving Norman Rockwell's United Nations," at the Rockwell Museum through September. For more information, visit the museum’s website at www.nrm.org. TOP
Art Conservator publishes rare interview with German artist Mary Bauermeister
The Spring 2009 issue of Art Conservator, the twice-yearly publication of the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, leads off with a cover story about the work of Pop-era artist Mary Bauermeister. The article features a rare, full-length English-language interview with the German painter, sculptor and assemblage pioneer.
The article, “The Great Society: An exuberant assemblage from the 1960s leads to an overlooked master,” was written by Art Conservator editor Timothy Cahill. It examines a Bauermeister “optical-box” sculpture from 1969 titled #175 The Great Society, a mélange of political caricature, social commentary, decorated elements and brightly colored designs, enhanced by a series of magnifying lenses that enlarge and distort the work’s multi-tiered effect. The piece, which takes its title from Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 poverty and social reform programs, is owned by the Mead Art Center, Amherst College, Massachusetts.
In the course of the interview, Bauermeister discusses the origin of her lens boxes, as well as the course of her artistic career, which began in the destruction of post-World War II Germany, and eventually lead her to New York City, where she knew such luminaries as Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. Bauermeister recounts her early years in Cologne, hosting art happenings for an eclectic range of international talents that included John Cage and Nam June Paik, as well as many of the artists who later formed the Fluxus art movement. She goes on to describe the direct influences of both Robert Rauschenberg and Bob Dylan.
The complete transcript of the interview is also available on the WACC website. Art Conservator is published by WACC to educate the public on matters relating to art conservation and cultural heritage, and report on activities at the Williamstown, Massachusetts-based center. The new issue also includes features on Tim Rollins and K.O.S., analysis of a 19th-century tavern sign, and proper handling of Asian scrolls, as well as short reports about visiting conservators from Mongolia, and artists Florine Stettheimer, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, George Robert Lawton and Philip Morseberger. TOP
WACC chief paper conservator Leslie Paisley was among the lecturers at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in a program organized around with the museum’s “Louvre Atlanta” exhibition series. Paisley joined Carel van Tuyll, head of the Louvre Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings, and collector Dr. Sheldon Peck, as featured speakers for the High’s Gudmund Vigtel Works on Paper Fund lecture.
The program, titled “Inside the Louvre’s Drawings Cabinet,” offered a glimpse behind the scenes at the storied Paris museum. Van Tuyll, a Netherlands native and the first non-French curator in Louvre history, narrated a slide-show tour of the museum’s print and drawings department and storage room, located in a former royal reception hall of the Louvre Palace. The lecture described the museum’s system of vertical storage, where print boxes are stored on their ends, like books, rather than on shelves horizontally, as is common in US institutions. In a collection the size of the Louvre’s, the system is an economical use of available storage space, Paisley observed, requiring that the artwork be mounted to withstand the stress of vertical storage.
Mr. van Tuyll hinted that his department does not budget as much for conservation treatment, research and analysis for individual drawings, placing the emphasis on preventive conservation strategies such as conservation mounting, framing and environmental control that benefit the entire collection. In European museums, the nomenclature of art conservation differs slightly; the word “conservation” refers primarily to preventive care, while “restoration,” a term that in the US has the specific meaning of reconstructing a damaged object, among Europeans denotes any repair treatment performed on an artwork.
Paisley followed with her talk, “Conservation Conversations: Treatment of Art on Paper.” She observed that a common misperception is that “conservation” refers only to “trees and polar bears.”
“I prefer to think of myself as an art doctor,” she said. “My patients are as unique as individuals.” Paisley described what she called her “holistic” approach to art conservation, one that avoids local treatments to merely improve the appearance of the artwork for procedures that encourage more uniform aging of the artifact.
Peck, a prominent collector of Dutch and Flemish drawings, spoke third, describing his process of examination and analysis in advance of an auction of Old Master drawings.
The lecture, named for a long-time director of the High, was attended by some one hundred guests, including museum professionals, private collectors and Atlanta artists. The High Museum is currently showing the last in a series of three exhibitions featuring masterworks from the Louvre. http://louvreatlanta.high.org TOP
The Williamstown Art Conservation Center (WACC) announces the launching of its new, expanded website, which offers visitors complete information about the Center and useful resources for art professionals and private owners. The site address is www.williamstownart.org. "Our old website had long ago outgrown its usefulness," said WACC director Thomas Branchick. “The new site is more comprehensive, easier to use and beautiful to look at."
The website offers detailed descriptions of WACC’s departments, services, education and public activities, as well as information on the Center’s history and a glossary of terms relevant to art conservation. The site links easily to WACC’s sister facility, the Georgia-based Atlanta Art Conservation Center. Visually, its photograph illustrations amount to a virtual tour of WACC’s new Stone Hill Center facility, designed by world-renowned architect Tadao Ando.
The website will be launched in two phases. Phase I offers visitors, patrons and others interested in art conservation a complete description of the Center’s facilities and services, as well as instructions for clients wishing to consult with us or arrange for treatments. Phase II, which will come online in early 2009, will include a number of expanded features, including technical bulletins written by WACC professionals, listings of suppliers and resources for art professionals, updated funding opportunities and useful web links.
The new site is part of WACC’s mission to inform and educate the public in the process of art care and conservation. In 2006, WACC launched Art Conservator, its twice-yearly, full-color magazine of art and conservation. Art Conservator, which circulates to museums, art centers, libraries and universities throughout the US and several foreign countries, is now also available online.
The site was conceived by WACC Editor Timothy Cahill and designed by Berg Design of Albany, New York.
For more information, contact WACC at 413-458-5741. TOP
The Spring 2009 issue of 
WACC chief paper conservator Leslie Paisley was among the lecturers at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in a program organized around with the museum’s “Louvre Atlanta” exhibition series. Paisley joined Carel van Tuyll, head of the Louvre Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings, and collector Dr. Sheldon Peck, as featured speakers for the High’s Gudmund Vigtel Works on Paper Fund lecture.
"Our old website had long ago outgrown its usefulness," said WACC director Thomas Branchick. “The new site is more comprehensive, easier to use and beautiful to look at."