Month: June 2012

A region not expecting an earthquake is devastated by two

The New York Times reported (“Quakes Deal Irreparable Blow to an Italian Region’s Cultural Heritage”, by Elisabetta Povoledo, June 3, 2012) that the two major earthquakes which struck the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy in May 2012 left most of its historic buildings and many modern structures in ruins. While teams of art historians, restorers, archaeologists, engineers and firefighters have been examining buildings and charting the extent of the damage, there are not enough experts to handle the work load. As the last major earthquake to strike the region occurred in 1570, for hundreds of years earthquake resistance was not a factor that was considered in building design. Not long after the 1570 quake, a treatise on how to build earthquake resistant buildings was written by Pietro Ligorio. How sad and costly for the monuments of Emilia-Romagna that Ligorio’s recommendations were not followed.

Gagosian and Prada to the rescue

According to The New York Times(“Inside Art: Campaign Aims to Restore Weather-Abused ‘Lightning Field'”, June 8, 2012), after thirty-five years of exposure to rough weather in the New Mexican desert, Walter De Maria’s “The Lightning Field” is in need of extensive and expensive conservation work. Fortunately, Larry Gagosian and Miuccia Prada have taken on the job of raising the necessary funds and work will begin in early 2013.

Decay is the material’s revenge

In a profile of the artist Sarah Sze (“A million little pieces. The sculptural maelstroms of Sarah Sze”, The New Yorker, May 14, 2012), Andrea K. Scott describes being with Sze when one of her new constructions intended for an upcoming art fair collapses. “Sze wasn’t particularly fazed. ‘What does the Gutai manifesto say?’, she said, referring to a Japanese art movement from the nineteen-fifties. ‘Decay is just the material’s revenge for being extracted from the earth.'” While an artist may have such a relaxed perspective or guiding principle, could a conservator?

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting-May 11, 2012 Joint Session: Book and Paper Group/Research and Technical Studies, with the Archives Conservation Discussion Group and the Library Collections Conservation Discussion Group “Mass De-Acidification Today”

The session was a series of short presentations by the panelists followed by a question and answer session that was open to the floor as well as pre-submitted questions from the AIC membership.

The panelists were: James Burd, President and CEO of Preservation Technologies, LP; Michael Ramin, Project Manager Research/Analytics, Nitrochemie; Dick Smith, owner Wei T’o Associates; Fenella France, Chief, Preservation of Research and Testing Division, Library of Congress; Nora Lockshin, Smithsonian Institution Archive on behalf of Anna Friedman, Conservator, National Archives and Records Administration.

The first presentation by James Burd “Bookkeeper Deacidification: The Chemistry Behind the Process” began with a review of Preservation Technologies’ twenty years in business, including an overview of their products and services as well as the scope of their operations.  Mr. Burd spent the most time describing the Bookkeeper process, that it is a non-toxic, non-flammable, non-VOC, odorless process that does not use solvents or produce effluents.  The alkaline agent is magnesium oxide (MgO) and in the mass-process it is delivered in an inert suspension liquid in which the books are immersed, relying on an electrostatic attraction to cellulose to deposit the MgO in the paper.  Mr. Burd referenced recent research at the Canadian Conservation Institute and assorted technical studies at the Library of Congress in support of the effectiveness of the Bookkeeper process and reminded the audience that whatever the challenges presented by brittle collections, the greatest risk is doing nothing.

Michael Ramin followed with his talk “Durability, Quality Control, and Ink Corrosion Treatment with the Papersave Swiss Mass De-Acidification Process”.  Papersave is a solvent based process using hexamethylene disiloxane (HMDO) as the solvent and magnesium as the alkaline agent.  For treatment, the books are placed in metal baskets, which are then placed in a chamber for pre-drying, treatment, post drying and re-conditioning.  Papers, books and drawings can be treated by this process.  The items are treated in a vacuum chamber which ensures saturation by the treatment solution followed by the reconditioning process which allows moisture back into the chamber and the moisture in the air activates the deposited alkaline reserve.  The company performs regular quality control in line with the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) and has retained 12 years’ worth of data including surface pH and XRF measurements to determine distribution of alkaline reserve.  Papersave also has sample sets for real time ageing at five and ten year intervals.  According to Mr. Ramin, the Papersave process is alos safe for paper that has iron gall ink corrosion since “through the treatment the acid is neutralized without removal or migration of the ions, on the contrary some of the iron is bound and neutralized.”

Dick Smith’s talk “Wei T’o Paperguard: Comprehensively De-acidifying, Stabilizing and Strengthening Paper” was third in the line-up although all the presenters acknowledged Mr. Smith as a foundation researcher and advocate for the mass de-acidification of paper.  The original Wei T’o product was one of the first on the market for the treatment of acidic paper and Mr. Smith spent a portion of his talk describing how he became interested in the science of paper de-acidification, explaining that even though a piece of paper is thin, penetrating the surface with an even distribution of an alkaline agent is not an easy task to accomplish, especially 30-40 years ago when the technology was not very advanced.  Mr. Smith then went on to profile a new Wei T’o product, still in the development phase, called Paperguard which not only de-acidifies, but also protects paper from fungal growth and pests.  It is a zinc-based process that is environmentally sustainable since the by-products of the process are recoverable.

The fourth presentation was by Fenella France “Taking the Measure: Treatment and Testing in Mass Deacidification” and started with a review of the Library of Congress’ research into the mass de-acidification process which began in the 1970’s and expanded in the 1990’s.  While the Library of Congress has vast historical collections, they are also still taking in acidic collections from all over the world and their current mass de-acidification treats more late 20th and early 21st century books from India, Spain, USA, etc. than 19th century material.  The initial goal for the Library’s research was to establish a process that would deposit an alkaline reserve that tripled the longevity of an item, Bookkeeper was selected and a treatment facility was installed on-site at the Madison building.  Testing and quality control is ongoing, but Ms. France sees a real need for the library research community to do more independent testing and not rely on vendor sources since there is too much variation in test methods to allow for meaningful comparison of data.  A single measure that could be applied across the different mass de-acidification processes would enhance the assessment process and allow for agreement on the definition of progress.

The final presentation was Nora Lockshin on behalf of Anna Friedman “Evaluating De-Acidification After 20 Years of Natural Aging”.  Ms. Friedman’s research focused on a treatment group from a 1989-1991 project at the Smithsonian Institution Archives where over 500 architectural drawings out of a record group of over 2,000 were sent out for de-acidification with Wei T’o Soft Spray or an aqueous bath with Magnesium Bicarbonate.  Ms. Friedman used surface pH testing and colorimetric measurements at 5 points across the front of a drawing to evaluate the long term effectiveness of the de-acidification treatments.  The colorimetric evaluation did not show any trends, but the surface pH showed that the application of Wei T’o was very uneven across the surface of the document.  This would make sense given the application process of Soft Spray.  However, comparison with a control group showed that documents that had been treated for mass de-acidification did have a higher pH after 20 years of natural aging.

The open discussion that followed began with a submitted question

SubQ: Is spraying of individual items as effective?

A: Papersave and Paperguard cannot be applied singly- mass only

Q: (Emily Rainwater) As a user of post-Bookkeeper treated items, she finds a lot of residue from handling the books, e.g. turning pages.

A: (Burd)- The particulates should go away as the treated book ages. (France)- Early in the development of the Bookkeeper process the particles were fairly large; they’re smaller now, so the white powder problem should go away.

Q: (Eric Hansen)- Italian conservators and others have complained that Bookkeeper changes the feel of the paper.  Will Bookkeper address this question in a direct way so that this issue can be settled?

A: (Burd)- People really shouldn’t be able to tell, he has spray with him and offered to let people spray samples of paper and feel for themselves.  The particle size is small and the quality control protocol of mass de-acidification is rigorous.  (Smith)- Is particle size really the issue? Are we measuring what we think we’re measuring in terms of quality control? The TAPPI tests that we generally use are a standard, but are not precise to our need.

Q: (John Batty)- What does Mr. Burd mean by “pure” alkaline reserve?

A: (Burd)The magnesium that Bookkeeper uses is of high purity, but also there is no residue of other treatment fluids after the process is completed since the Bookkeeper process is full recovery.

Q: (John Batty)- To Mr. Smith: are you planning to treat artist’s materials to a specific pH?

A:(Smith) Not just to a specific pH, but also using zinc to ensure fungal and pest prevention.

Q: (Johanna P) To M. Burd, how is the benefit to ink measured, given that iron gal ink is supposed to stay acidic? Also, what about the color change or yellowing of treated items?

A: (Burd) If you have an ink you want to stay acidic, don’t treat it with a de-acidification process.  If you want to stabilize iron gall ink and protect the substrate as well, then the Bookkeper process can be directed toward strengthening of paper.

A: (Ramin)- Non aqueous is better treatment since the paper is not as stressed.

A: (Smith): Commenting on paper yellowing after treatment by Wei T’o; he took yellowing as a sign of effectiveness since it demonstrated penetration of spray (this was in the early days) but don’t give up on de-acidification, work on delivery of the alkaline reserve.

A: (Burd)- Commenting on yellowing- Since the Bookkeeper process doesn’t use a solvent, there shouldn’t be any yellowing.  Some researchers have spotted yellowing due to aging of magnesium, but Burd thinks the books would probably have yellowed anyway, so the magnesium application just changes the characteristics of the yellowing. Burd went on to comment that yellowing is only present in artificially aged paper samples, and that 20 years is not long enough for real time aging to be conclusive.

A: (Ramin) Papersave tests show some yellowing in ground wood and to comment on mold remediation, the Papersave drying process kills mold, which is a side benefit.  Once treated, collections tend to have better storage conditions, so mold is less likely to grow again

A: (Smith)- Zinc has potential for mold and pest prevention in addition to mass de-acidification.

A: (Burd)- Alkalization does help with mold prevention

Q: (Ursula ?): Could there be more natural aging studies? To Ms. France, given ten years of using Bookkeeper, are you doing any studies? To Ms. Lockshin: were the treated papers stored differently?

A: (France)- Yes, the Library of Congress is initiating a long term study.

A: (Lockshin) all treated drawings were encapsulated and then opened for analysis but were otherwise stored together.

Q: (Cathleen Baker): the audience knows a lot about the complexity of paper, but the ads and trade lit is a little unsophisticated and implies that mass treatment should be readily applied, whereas selection is a more complex process.  What about the effect of mass de-acidification on lignin?

A: (Burd)- This has been reported in literature, but if you attack lignin you will make paper weaker, to prevent this effect, don’t select items that are brittle where the lignin or cellulose is already weak, they can’t be rebuilt by mass de-acidification.

A: (Lockshin) Commented that the Smithsonian receives many reference calls, people have seen an ad for a product and want information on its effectiveness.

Q: (Renate Mesmer) The Folger Library has just started a Bookkeeper project and wanted to comment that handling of books for the Bookkeeper process is extreme, given the fanning out and agitation.  They have also found very high amounts of white deposits, and given these high amounts of surface deposits, is anything going to the core of the paper?

A: (Burd)- Since we don’t use solvents we have to fan the books so that the alkaline particles can make their way into the paper.  If a book is too delicate for the mass process, then use the single item process. Distressed to hear that there are a lot of white deposits.  Porosity of the paper is the dependent factor on penetration, but acids migrate toward the alkaline particles so this shouldn’t ultimately be a problem.

Collections Matter – IMLS Blog post

The previous blog post  “Respond Now to IMLS Grant Guidelines” gives information on the AIC Board of Director’s response to IMLS’s proposed grant revisions and outlines ways in which you can, and should, make your voice heard.  For more information on the topic also read the June 1 post Collections Matter on IMLS’s blog from Connie Bodner, IMLS Senior Program Officer.  In her post she describes her experience at AIC’s recent annual meeting,  mentions the proposed changes to the grant guidelines and highlights some of the recent Conservation Project Support recipients.

If you have ever applied for an IMLS grant (or intent to in the future) don’t let the opportunity pass to provide informed feedback!

Respond Now to IMLS Museum Grant Guidelines!

If you have not yet done so, please respond now to the request from IMLS posted below.  The AIC Board of Directors agree that that the proposed new grant guidelines pose a real threat to conservation funding and the long-term care of collections.  It is imperative that IMLS hear from the conservation community—from individual conservation professionals as well as from AIC as a whole.   AIC is submitting a response on behalf of the organization.  Some points taken from it include:

  • By merging Museums for America (MFA) and Conservation Project Support (CPS), there will no longer be a funding source dedicated to conservation.
  • Although multiple applications will be permitted by IMLS, multiple submissions from institutions will ultimately compete against each other.  Exhibition or education proposals, for instance, would be pitted against conservation proposals.
  • If museums focus their grant writing efforts on the support of exhibitions, education, and community outreach, the grants will provide important support for annual programming budgets, yet these funds will do little to support museum missions to preserve and make their permanent collections accessible in a more lasting way.
  • One January 15 deadline for all proposals puts a great burden on museum staff members, particularly for those working in smaller institutions.

While AIC applauds IMLS for considering changes to improve its grant services, combining the CPS and MFA programs and instituting a single application deadline will have unintended consequences that will result in museums placing less emphasis on conservation of collections.  AIC urges IMLS to consider leaving CPS as a separate program or combining it with collections stewardship.

How have the collections for which you are responsible benefited from IMLS conservation support in the past?  What impact on collections care do you envision with the implementation of the draft guidelines being presented by IMLS?

Speak up!  Now!

Thank you,

Meg Craft, AIC Board President

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 9, 2012

IMLS Press Contacts
202-653-4632
Kevin O’Connell, koconnell@imls.gov
Mamie Bittner, mbittner@imls.gov

Draft Museum Grant Guidelines Available for Public Comment

Washington, DC—The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is seeking public comments on the draft guidelines for the FY 2013 Museums for America and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs. The guidelines for these programs have been revised to align with the IMLS Strategic Plan.  We are seeking comments to assess how well these guidelines accomplish the following goals:

To see the guidelines use these links:
Museums for America
National Leadership Grants for Museums

The comment period will end on Friday, July 6, 2012.  Please send comments to comments@imls.gov. Final guidelines will be posted no later than October 15, 2012.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Tamarind Institute Tour

Posted on behalf of Debora Mayer.

The tour of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop was a highlight of the conference. Tamarind was founded in Los Angeles in 1960 as a means to invigorate the art of lithography by training master printers and forging collaborations with artists. Tamarind moved to Albuquerque in 1970, became affiliated with the University of New Mexico and continues to train printers in a MFA program.

As a student in lithography in the 1970’s I was enamored with and extensively referenced the textbook The Tamarind Book of Lithography Art and Techniques by Garo Antreasian and Clinton Adams. My copy of the book is now deteriorating and brittle from exposure to studio chemicals. Many of my favorite artists such as Jim Dine and Ed Ruscha have printed at Tamarind and their prints were on the wall and their presence was felt on the day of the tour.

The tour began with the group watching a 1973 documentary film “Four Stones for Kanemitsu” detailing the collaboration between artist Matsumi Kanemitsu and Master Printer Serge Lozingot as they create and print a four-color lithograph. Best of all, was the delight of seeing in the film– co-star, conservator and colleague Betty Fiske. Betty was curator at Tamarind at the time of the filming and she spoke to the process of creating the documentation sheet that records the materials and techniques used to create each edition. By the way these documentation sheets are in the process of being scanned and will soon be available as PDFs for collectors.

The tour continued to the print studio filled with presses, shelves of rollers, inks, and litho stones. A print of an owl was being pulled by MFA students in the apprentice program. The smell of ink was wonderful.

Walking across the street to the U of NM Art Museum I participated in the (AIC) tour of the museum. To complete the story, the museum is the repository for the print archive of the Tamarind workshop- housed in their newly renovated print study and storage area.

Debora Mayer

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – ECPN Informational Meeting, May 8

The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN) Informational Meeting provided both a great introduction to ECPN and updates on the group’s activities.  Attendees broke out into small discussion groups for second half of the meeting, with ECPN officers facilitating discussions on current initiatives and encouraging feedback and ideas.

At the start of the meeting, the officers whose terms ended over the past year were recognized (Rose Cull, Heather Brown, Amber Kerr-Allison, and Amy Brost).  Two new officers were announced – Gwen Manthey, new Professional Education and Training co-officer and Angela Curmi, new Communications Coordinator.  There are also liaisons in ECPN that work with other AIC committees, geographical regions, and with Canadian emerging conservators (CAC-ECC), and they were introduced.  The officers then gave an update on the key initiatives underway in ECPN: the Mentoring Program, student research platform, outreach through the blog, Facebook, and proposed Forum Calls, and the new PR Toolkit on the AIC wiki.

Then, the attendees broke out into small groups to discuss their thoughts about ECPN’s current programs, and what topics and initiatives are of greatest interest to them.  Here are a few ideas that had broad support at the meeting:

  • Create a quarterly email newsletter (most said that email was the best way to reach them, rather than the blog or Facebook page)
  • Make it clearer how to sign up to be on the ECPN email list
  • Provide more opportunities for ECPN to work on the wiki, perhaps by helping to make content more media-rich (add images, etc)
  • Make the AIC website more user-friendly, and send ideas to the AIC website task force
  • Broad support for the student research platform, and interest in contributing content.  Everyone really liked the idea of a student research platform which could function as a central location for finding all student research. Many were comfortable with the idea of submitting and seeking out either abstracts or full-length papers. If abstract form was selected, including the author’s contact information so the researcher could potentially ask them for more information was preferred.
  • Would like to see ECPN help with centralizing conservation education programs, employment opportunities, internship and fellowship announcements, and help with identifying potential funding sources for post-graduate internships
  • Help identifying possible internship and fellowship opportunities in private practices
  • Increase professional development opportunities, ie, distance (web-based) learning, short-term internships, etc.
  • Consider the needs of international pre-program interns and students, perhaps with online resources for them
  • Interest in a LinkedIn group for ECPN
  • Enthusiastic about the new Forum Calls to begin in 2012

The next regular ECPN meeting will take place via conference call on Monday, June 18 at 1 pm ET.  For more information, visit the ECPN page on the AIC website.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, May 9, “Frederick Hammersley: An Artist’s Documentation of His Painting Practice” by Alan Phenix

Pacific Standard Time is not just a time zone.  It is also the title of a Getty-funded initiative, jointly launched by the Getty Foundation and Getty Research Institute, that enabled more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California to tell the story of the art scene in Los Angeles, California.  The initiative focuses on archives, research, exhibitions, publications, and other programs to record the region’s artistic history.  A substantial part of the project is dedicated to Los Angeles art from post-World War II through the 1970s.  In 2011/2012 The Getty Center held an exhibition entitled Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970.  One of the artists in the show was the painter Frederick Hammersley, who died in 2009.  After Hammersley’s death a artist-endowed Foundation was established to preserve and maintain his artistic legacy.  Getty researchers first encountered the extensive archive of materials held by the Hammersley Foundation during preparations for the Crosscurrents show.  Alan Phenix presented to the Paintings Specialty Group some introductory observations on the wealth of that information.

Frederick Hammersley was a leading abstract painter in Southern California in the postwar period.  He first gained widespread notoriety in 1956 when he was included with artists Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, and John McLaughlin in an exhibition entitled Four Abstract Classicists.  The show led to the coining of the painting movement known as “West Coast Hard-Edge”.  Hammersley was born in 1919 and studied art in the 1940s at the Chouinard and Jepson Art Institutes in Los Angeles.  He stayed on at the Jepson Institute in a teaching capacity after he finished his studies.  He also held subsequent teaching positions at Pomona College (1953-62), Pasadena Art Museum (1956-61), and Chouinard (1964-68).  In 1968 he took a teaching position at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, which he kept until 1971 when he stopped teaching to concentrate on his painting.  He continued to work at his home studio until six months before his death and his space remained essentially untouched after his death, serving as final documentation of his life and work.  Hammersley had also fastidiously documented his artistic process in series of notebooks for a period of more than 50 years with few interruptions.  Among the most notable of these were four “Painting Books” that consist of cumulative and descriptive chronological lists of works completed.  The project being undertaken by the Getty Conservation Institute aims to examine and interpret that archive of materials for what it may reveal about Hammersley’s process, materials and techniques, and what it might mean for the preservation and conservation of his work.

Hammersley’s painting had a strong psychological element, which is illustrated in the evolution of his work.  From 1954 to 1959 he worked on a series he called “Hunch” paintings, which developed without preparation as the artist relied on “hunches” coming from reflection and intuition to guide his work.  In 1963 until 1965 he worked on series defined as “Organics” and “Cut Ups” that expanded upon his intuitive painting with more organic processes.  In several periods throughout his career he also worked on more hard-edged geometric paintings.  An early instance of his documentation and creative evolution was found in a set of notes on labels on the back of a 1956 “Hunch” painting entitled In Front Of, in which he recorded dates for the addition of specific shapes in the composition.

The artist began keeping his “Painting Books” in 1959, wherein he kept lists of his work, information about his process, when and to whom each work was sold, and other related information.  The details of his records continued to increase and by 1966 he’d expanded his notes to include additional items, such as information on specific paints.

It was interesting to hear that Hammersley’s documentation was not limited to formal records and itemized lists; his notebooks were also works of art in their own way.  Some of his books contained visual composition ideas in thumbnail sketches.  When he liked a composition he would execute it in a slightly larger (ca. 3″ x 3″) format.  Eventually he began including sequential breakdowns of the development of particular artworks.  On occasion he would revisit past artworks and those changes were also documented in his notebooks.  The artistic process was not limited to the works themselves.  Hammersley kept a “Titles” folder that contained lists of words written by free association.  When he came across words he liked he would underline them and then retrofit them to create titles for particular works.

This presentation just scratched the surface of the available information in Hammersley’s personal documentation.  The goal of the Getty Conservation Institute’s work is to make the mass of information of Hammersley’s archive available to a wider audience, including conservators who may have cause to work on his paintings in the future.  A searchable database is envisaged once the material is transcribed, collated, and interpreted.

This year’s annual meeting was focused on connecting to conservation through outreach and advocacy.  A searchable database of artists’ materials and techniques certainly has potential to assist with that effort.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, May 9, “Relating Artist Technique and Materials to Condition in Richard Diebenkorn’s ‘Ocean Park’ Series” by Ana Alba

When Ana Alba was working at the Hirshhorn Museum she undertook a research project on four paintings from Richard Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park” series.  Her study compared the materials used in each of the paintings and assessed how that tied in to their current condition.  She presented her findings at the 2010 annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Two of the paintings had severe cracking while the other two were in good condition; the paintings with the cracking had an acrylic preparatory layer.  At this year’s annual meeting she presented research conducted at the National Gallery of Art that expanded upon her intial study.

Ana’s current research involved the examination of more than 45 paintings and samples for analysis were collected from approximately 15 paintings.  All of the information gathered was compiled into an extensive chronological database.  An additional list of travel histories with photographic references was completed.  The results of this study showed changes in the artists materials both between paintings and within individual works.

Diebenkorn worked for weeks to years on some of his paintings.  He painted consistently on unsized cotton duck but his choice of preparatory materials fluctuated over time.  Between 1968 and 1973 he used white acrylic gesso and toned it with diluted acrylic.  In some cases he added alkyd.  From 1973 to 1978 he transitioned from white to clear preparatory layers, presumably in order to maintain the raw canvas color and achieve transparencies in his paint layers.  Scientific analysis suggested the clear material was synthetic and consistent with Rhoplex AC-33.  This was more or less confirmed by photographic evidence of showing large jugs labeled as Rhoplex located in the artist’s studio.  By 1979 Diebenkorn had returned to using acrylic gesso almost exclusively.

Diebenkorn primarily painted with acrylics and alkyds.  He added oils sparingly and extended his paints as far as possible.  He also used charcoal, graphite, and colored pencil to define his images.  Infrared reflectography of his paintings show numerous alterations in his compositions, which is unsurprising given his appreciation of layering and the amount of time he spent working on each piece.  Once a painting was finished he applied matte fixative to the surface.  In his early works he applied this in 6 or 8 consecutive layers that left a glassy, heavy surface.  Eventually he shifted his process and masked out the painting to limit application to the charcoal areas.

The condition assessment of this larger group of paintings seem to support the findings of Ana’s initial study.  Paintings executed between 1960 and 1973 vary and some show some cracking.  The cracks follow drawn lines, compositional changes, and are greatest on the paintings with heavy layers.  Paintings completed after 1973 and before 1980 have heavier, more pronounced cracking with broad and isolated areas of cupping.  These paintings follow the same trend as the earlier works with the greatest cracking located in the layered areas.  Diebenkorn’s paintings after 1980 are in much more pristine condition with less cracks.  The trend of this condition timeline show that the paintings in the poorest condition are located in the middle of the Ocean Park series.  This supports previous findings by showing that paintings with Rhoplex and acrylic exhibit the worst cracking, especially when they are painted thickly with numerous layers.

This study highlights concerns regarding some of Diebenkorn’s selection of materials.  Alkyds are brittle so putting them over flexible preparatory films and unsized canvas makes them susceptible to cracking from impacts and physical movement of the substrate.  Fortunately, they do not seem prone to delamination so the cracking does not lead to significant paint loss.  In addition, when Diebenkorn diluted his materials he reduced their strength.  That left them with a greater chance of deformation in response to physical and environmental factors.

Ana pointed out that there are some limiting and extenuating factors to consider in this research.  The are as follows:

  • No samples were taken from privately owned paintings.
  • His assistants did not see him working so they could not provide information about his process
  • Diebenkorn did not keep detailed records of his work or do preparatory drawings.
  • The study compares paintings in good and poor condition only.
  • The artist destroyed some works, painted over others, and skipped #5 when creating the series.
  • One large painting from Brooklyn was an outlier in the study; it was completed prior to 1973 but it shows significant cracking across large ares of the surface.
During the question and answer session following the presentation it was also noted that areas with Rhoplex on raw canvas showed discoloration.
I have a personal appreciation for Diebenkorn’s work and have enjoyed following the progression of Ana’s research project.  By coincidence, I had the opportunity to realize that interest in person this week when the exhibition, Richard Diebenkorn:  The Ocean Park Series, was deinstalled at the Orange County Museum of Art in California.  I conducted outgoing condition assessments of some of the paintings and was able to see exactly what Ana had discussed in her presentation.  The exhibition will open at its final destination, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, on June 30th.  I encourage all of you to check out the show if possible to see the subjects of Ana’s research side by side for the first time on such a large scale.