A P U B L I C A T I O N o f T ‌h e W illia m s town A r t C on s e r v ation C e nt e r Volu m e 7 , N u m b e r 1 • Sp r in g 2 0 1 2
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 1
Contents, Spring 2012
Art Conservator
Volume 7, Number 1 • Spring 2012
Director
T‌homas J. Branchick
Editor
Timothy Cahill
Art Direction and Production
Berg Design, Albany NY
Photographer
Matthew Hamilton
Contributors
Hugh Glover, Lauren LaFlam,
Zoë Samels, Michelle Savant,
Larry Shutts
Proofreader
David Brickman
Office Manager
Rob Conzett
Accounts Manager
Teresa Haskins
Printing
Snyder Printer, Troy, NY
Williamstown
Art Conservation Center
227 South Street
Williamstown, MA 01267
www.williamstownart.org
T: 413-458-5741
F: 413-458-2314
Atlanta
Art Conservation Center
6000 Peachtree Road
Atlanta, GA 30341
T: 404-733-4589
F: 678-547-1453
All rights reserved. Text and photographs
copyright © Williamstown Art Conservation
Center (WACC), unless otherwise noted.
Art Conservator is published twice yearly
by WACC, T‌homas J. Branchick, director.
Material may not be reproduced in any form
without written permission of Williamstown
Art Conservation Center. WACC is a
nonprofit, multi-service conservation center
serving the needs of member museums,
nonprofit institutions and laboratories, and
the general public.
On the cover
William Bouguereau’s Nymphs and Satyr
(detail), faced in Japanese tissue during
treatment.
2 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
From the Director
3 Director’s Letter
A few weeks ago I completed one of the most complicated treatments of my career, William
Adolphe Bouguereau’s huge painting Nymphs and Satyr, owned by the Sterling and
Francine Clark Art Institutute. The structural part of the treatment was straightforward.
The canvas’s 1942 lining peeled away with ease. Removing the adhesive residue was just as
easy—it swelled with moisture and was merely a repetitive exercise. The protective facing
tissue did its job keeping the paint film intact.
The cleaning and cosmetic treatment, however—that was complicated. We knew
that the painting was abraded during the 1942 cleaning. We also knew that a thick, syrupy
varnish was applied at that time to cover up the abrasion and linear ridges from the botched lining. Removing
the discolored varnish was the intent of the conservation campaign. This required the curatorial authorities at
the Clark Art institute to reach a consensus on the degree of cleaning. There were many sleepless 3AM-ers on
this one. Remembering the controversy surrounding the Sistine chapel cleaning, one faction leaned toward
maintaining the painting’s brownish veil of age. My concern was, what did the artist intend?
In the last issue of Art Conservator, I forecast that “that big white tushy was going to be a lot whiter.” How
much whiter created some debate, but much discussion later the question was resolved to everyone’s agreement.
The cleaning balanced the highlights of flesh in the composition, which in my opinion is what the painting is all
about. You can travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where the picture is on loan, to see this
glorious painting in its new clothes—or more correctly, lack of them—or wait until its return to Williamstown
when the Clark reopens in 2014.
Speaking of the Clark’s expansion, I walked up the earth berm overlooking the construction site where our old
building used to be. Nothing was there except a small pile of rubble and, after a fleeting moment of nostalgia, my
mind quickly hastened to the space that we are in. We sure have moved up, which is evident in the picture below.
Marc Simpson at the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art sent along a point of
correction regarding our Fall 2011 issue. The article incorrectly reported that the Willem de Kooning painting
Labyrinth had not been on exhibition since 1946, but Mark aptly pointed out the large painting was exhibited
in the early 1990s at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, where he was curator, after which it went to
the Addison Gallery in Andover. Turns out there were several “debuts” prior to last year’s retrospective at the
Museum of Modern Art. —Tom Branchick
4 Nymphs Reborn
Conservation casts new light on William Bouguereau’s Nymphs and Satyr
By Timothy Cahill
8 The Talladega Murals
Hale Woodruff’s Amistad masterpiece embarks on a national tour
By Larry Shutts
12 Pinning Down History
Insects, America, and the Art of John Hampson
By Zoë Samels
16 WACC News & Notes
Mongolian conservator completes residency; reconstructing David Deconstructed; Roy
Lichtenstein’s Wallpaper
18 Report from Atlanta
Polish and shine for a surrealist sculpture
19
Tech Notes
Original Picture Frames on Watercolors by Charles Burchfield
By Hugh Glover
The newly-lined
Nymphs and
Satyr in the
paintings lab
prior to cleaning.
Chairs used by summer visitors at Stone Hill Center stand empty as autumn makes its arrival in the Berkshires.
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 3
Cover Story
Nymphs Reborn
Conservation casts new light on William Bouguereau’s Nymphs and Satyr
By Timothy Cahill
On a March day in 1934, Robert Sterling Clark spent the day
at the Manhattan Storage Company, a storage and warehouse
firm that occupied a full block in midtown Manhattan. After
inspecting the wine cellars and making arrangements to have
a large stock of his own vintages transferred there, the multimillionaire collector was taken on a tour of the art storage
galleries, where he encountered a painting he hadn’t seen for more
than thirty years.
Clark recorded the finding in his diary. I saw the famous 1873
Bouguereau ‘Satyr & Nymphs’ again which used to be in the old
Hoffman House bar. It really is a fine picture. Marvelous nudes
especially the back of one . . . .
Except by men of a certain age, the picture Clark
discovered—Nymphs and Satyr, by William Bouguereau—
had been all but forgotten by 1934, though it was once the
most infamous artwork of Gilded Age New York. From 1882
to 1901, the monumental depiction of four sportive nymphs
pulling a goat-man into a wooded pool was the centerpiece of
the Hoffman House bar, the most famous hotel barroom in
America, made famous in part by that very painting. Its image
had decorated cigar boxes, plates, urns, and bathroom tiles, and
the painting had been viewed by an assortment of celebrities
and dignitaries from Buffalo Bill to Ulysses Grant—even
Tchaikovsky saw it following a performance at Carnegie Hall.
For three decades, every swell in New York made his way to
Broadway and 25th Street to partake of Nymphs, where its heady
combination of aesthetics and eros was displayed beneath a red
velvet canopy. Once a week, ladies were permitted in.
To Sterling Clark, it was “the Hoffman House of my youth.”
This would have been around 1899, the year that Clark, heir
to Singer Sewing Machine millions, graduated from Yale and
entered the Army to fight in the Spanish-American war in
the Philippines. Clark then served in China during the Boxer
Rebellion until 1902. By the time he returned to New York, the
Hoffman House was under new ownership and Nymphs had
disappeared into storage.
The picture did not fade from consciousness at first, despite
being gone from view. In 1905, cartoonist E.A. Filleau celebrated
Nymphs and Satyr in a drawing titled, “Weary Walker at
Art Exhibit.” A patched and matted hobo contemplates the
Bouguereau in a posh salon. “I’ve traveled the world over and
tramped every spot on the map,” the vagabond aesthete muses,
“but I’m damned if I can locate that brook.” 1905 was also the
year Bouguereau died, in La Rochelle, France, the town of his
birth. He had once been the most successful artist of his day,
but by his passing his reputation was also nearly expired. As
Bouguereau lay on his death bed, six hundred kilometers south
in the Mediterranean sun Henri Matisse was inventing Fauvism;
in Paris, Picasso was just two years away from resequencing the
DNA of Western art with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. After World
War One, the art world accelerated ever more quickly away from
what modernists considered the dead past. Nothing represented
the rotting corpse more than the polished sentimentality of
nineteenth-century French academic painting, for which
Bouguereau was the exemplar and last great acolyte.
Bouguereau was not dead thirty years when Clark found his
greatest masterpiece forgotten in a midtown warehouse, but it
may as well have been three centuries. By the 1930s, Bouguereau
was persona non grata in modernist history, and only someone
whose artistic sensibility was formed amid the opulent paneling
of the Hoffman House would have felt much affinity for Nymphs.
Clark was such a man. He made inquiries about buying the
picture the same day he saw it.
Fast-forward eight years. Clark has not forgotten Nymphs and
Opposite, Nymphs and Satyr (1873) by William Bouguereau, after
treatment. This page, detail before treatment, showing surface
imperfections..
4 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 5
Satyr, nor has he had any luck obtaining it. By 1942, however,
the owner of the painting had died and his estate was willing to
entertain offers. That June, Clark added the picture to his everexpanding art collection, which spanned Western art from Piero
della Francesca to Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Degas. At once,
he devised a way for Nymphs to become the talk of Manhattan
and support the French Resistance in the process. (As a young
man, Clark had lived many happy years in now Nazi-occupied
Paris; it was where he began collecting art and met his French
wife, Francine. He also owned property there.) The painting
was placed on exhibit at the upscale Durand-Ruel Gallery with
a twenty-five-cent admission, proceeds going to the Fighting
French Relief Committee. The event drew the attention of every
editor and announcer in New York.
Befor e pl acing Nymphs and Satyr on exhibition, Clark
sent it to an art restorer named Murray to stabilize the original
canvas, which had ripped loose at the edges. This is when the tale
begins for the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, where
the painting was conserved earlier this year. Now owned by
the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown,
Nymphs had been brought to WACC for treatment prior to an
extended loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The painting arrived at the Center just before Christmas and was
worked on between January and April.
For whatever reason, Murray was not up to the job Clark
hired him to do, which involved reinforcing the existing canvas
with a lining, and cleaning and revarnishing the painting.
Perhaps it was the size of the Bouguereau, some eight feet by six
feet, that stymied Murray. Perhaps he worked too fast, or was
not skilled at his trade. Or perhaps he was insufficiently sensitive
to the materials and techniques of high French academicism.
Whatever the reason, the one-named restorer made a noticeable
hash of the picture’s surface, and seventy years later undoing his
work was at the heart of the WACC treatment.
Bouguereau had used a thin linen support with a very fine
weave for his painting, which allowed him to achieve the enamel
smoothness of its finished surface. Heedless of this, Murray
lined the painting with a heavier, coarser canvas, one guaranteed
to show its texture through the linen. He followed this by
restretching the newly-lined painting before the adhesive had
fully cured. The result: radical flaws in the varnish and paint
layers that were instantly obvious in raking light. Two horizontal
welts, impressions made by the stretcher against the still-soft
liner, marked the picture one-third and two-thirds of the way
from the top, the lower welt embossing a line through the small
of the back of the main nude figure. The face of the painting
was additionally marred by a network of irregular corrugations,
alluvial ridges and furrows that showed bright highlights along
their spines and cast a web of thin shadows. The effect of this
uneven texture, caused by imprinting of the course lining on
Bouguereau’s original “handkerchief linen” support, was exactly
like ripples breaking the surface of a pool. In glancing light, you
couldn’t see through them to the nymphs below.
Murray cleaned the painting by thinning but not entirely
removing Bouguereau’s original dammar varnish layer. Over
this, he applied a thick layer of mastic varnish, a substance
that yellows quickly with age. Additional varnish was added
in 1956, the year Sterling and Francine opened the museum
they’d built for their art treasures. The picture went untouched
for three decades, until 1984, when it traveled as part of a
major Bouguereau retrospective to Montreal and Hartford.
Stages of treatment, from left: WACC director and head paintings conservator Tom Branchick removes stretcher tacks after protecting
the paint surface with Japanese tissue prior to lining removal; checkerboard washing of residual adhesive on original support; removing
6 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
In preparation for the tour, a synthetic varnish was applied to
protect the paint surface and mask the imperfections of the
1942 restoration. Since then, the painting, perhaps the most
memorable in the Clark collection, had been viewed through four
layers of varnish going back to 1873.
Varnish is pale yellow when applied and mellows to a tawnybrown with oxidation. This, augmented by ambient atmospheric
debris, is what provides the “golden glow” of Old Master
paintings. Museum-goers come to regard this discoloration as
a patina of venerable tradition, and many are upset when it is
removed to reveal often brilliant colors in place of once-muted
tones. While correcting the picture’s surface flaws involved the
relatively straightforward procedure of removing the old lining
and replacing it with a newer, more appropriate fabric, what to
do with the varnish was much more complex. The 1984 synthetic
layer was easily removed, but the question was how much of
Murry’s thick mastic varnish to take off. Cleaning windows
exposed a starkly brighter painting than anyone was used to. As
the old mastic coat was slowly lifted off, the nymphs’ Coppertone
tans were transformed to blushing alabaster. The glow of the
skin tones echoed notices Nymphs had received when it was first
exhibited in the 1873 Paris salon. Of the four dryads, critic Jules
Claretie observed, “the gloss of their skin could only have been
obtained through long, repeated baths in almond milk. The
[flesh] of the nymphs of Mr. Bouguereau . . . bring to mind pink
silk, even more than the pulp of some tasty fruit.”
Removal of the varnish required consultation between senior
conservators and the Clark curatorial staff. Tom Branchick,
chief paintings conservator and WACC director, performed the
treatment only after repeated meetings with Clark personnel
to determine how much of the original paint layer to reveal.
The question was not merely one of the varnish, but also of the
stability of the paint itself. Bouguereau created stunning visual
effects through the layering of thin washes of color, glazes and
scumbles that excessive cleaning might threaten. In many cases,
leaving the varnish untouched was the most prudent way to
protect the artist’s subtle passages of light and dark.
The removal of the old varnish revealed more than the painter’s
original palette. The signal quality of Bouguereau’s technique, for
both admirers and detractors, is its glossy surface, what one scholar
called the “school of the invisible brushstroke.” With the varnish
removed, this is no longer entirely the case. The cleaned canvas
now shows signs of Bouguereau’s fine, controlled brushwork, and
gives a powerful impression of the shifting, darting movements of
his hand as he spread and blended the pigments.
This physicality animates the newly conserved painting.
Beyond the obvious pleasure of four undraped females, there
are additional visual delights. Light shimmers across the picture
plane, leading the eye in a graceful dance of highlights and
reinforcing the complex dynamics of Bouguereau’s composition.
Charming details are visible once more, the silken hair of the
nymphs, for instance, or the evocative brushwork in the vegetation
along the pool. There is an area just behind the satyr’s profile,
framed by the arms of two women, which was an indistinct graygreen smudge before cleaning but now glows like stained glass.
Nymphs and Satyr, surely the finest Bouguereau in this
country, is for all its silly subject matter arguably a great painting.
Now, for the first time in over a century, we can better see the
painting as the artist intended. Critical reassessments in the past
thirty years have ended the artist’s exile as an art-world nonentity,
though his rehabilitation is hardly complete. Nymphs as it can
now be seen is likely to influence this process.
old varnish with cotton swabs and solvent; cleaning window detail revealing skin tones and sky before and after treatment; Branchick
discusses treatment options with Clark Art Institute director Michael Conforti.
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 7
Feature
Conserving the Talladega Murals
Hale Woodruff’s Amistad masterpiece
embarks on a national tour
By Larry Shutts
In 1938, Hale Aspacio Woodruff (1900-1980) was commissioned by Talladega College to produce a series
of murals for the college’s new library, then under construction. The library would be named for William
Savery, the former slave who had co-founded Talladega College, and the college wanted the murals to
reflect the struggle and triumph of African-Americans. Woodruff was thirty-eight years old and wellknown in the South and beyond; he had worked with Diego Rivera in Mexico, exhibited in Atlanta, and
gained a reputation for his frank, evocative depictions of the suffering and dignity of his people. The subject
of the project’s first three murals would be a largely forgotten episode in the history of American slavery, the
revolt in 1839 by thirty-five kidnapped Africans on the Spanish slave ship Amistad.
The uprising and subsequent capture of the Africans was a cause célèbre in the United States in its day.
In 1841, former president John Quincy Adams argued for the Amistad defendants before the Supreme
Court, which granted them their freedom. A foundation established to support the triumphant Africans
eventually provided seed money to found Talladega College, one of the country’s leading institutions
founded for the education of African-Americans. Woodruff’s murals revived both scholarly and popular
interest in the uprising; in 1997, Steven Spielberg retold the Amistad story in a film that used Woodruff’s
murals as source material.
The Amistad murals depict the three dramatic climaxes of the narrative, the shipboard revolt, the
courtroom trail, and the Africans’ repatriation to their home country of Sierra Leone. Woodruff completed three additional murals for the
library, one depicting the Underground Railroad and two celebrating Talladega College and Savery Library. The Talladega Murals have
long attracted visitors to the college’s Alabama campus, and will soon be seen by many more as they begin a three-year tour to museums
around the country.
Before exhibition, the murals were removed from the walls of Savery Library and brought to the Atlanta Art Conservation Center, the
southeast’s largest conservation facility, founded by the High Museum of Art and the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. The removal
and treatment were led by AACC chief paintings conservator Larry Shutts and assisted by conservators Michelle Savant and Thierry Boutet.
Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College opens at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta on June 9 and continues
through September 2. From there it travels to Indianapolis and other major cities,
including Dallas, New York, Washington, New Orleans, Hartford, Detroit, and
Birmingham. Below, in excerpts from an essay in the exhibition catalog, Larry Shutts,
Associate Conservator of Paintings at the Atlanta Art Conservation Center, discusses the
artist, the murals, and the conservation treatment necessary for their exhibition.
T
Opposite, The Revolt, the first of a sequence of three
Amistad murals by Hale Woodruff at Talladega College.
Above, Atlanta paintings conservator Larry Shutts
conducts solvent tests on one of the murals.
8 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
he conservation treatment of Hale Woodruff’s Talladega College murals
was both a challenging and rewarding experience peppered with excitement,
innovation, and discovery. Before the murals could be removed from
Savery Library, their home for more than seventy years, we had to perform extensive
examination and documentation of their existing condition. The initial examination
revealed that despite the lack of environmental controls, and despite having been
on continuous display since 1939 and 1942, the murals were in surprisingly good
condition, with only scattered areas of insecure paint, rolling canvas distortions,
and some localized damages. The murals appeared colorful and
lively; we would not fully appreciate the extent of the obscuring
dirt covering the surface and how it concealed the true vividness
of the imagery until cleaning began much later.
The foremost intention of the conservation treatment was
to stabilize the murals in preparation for both an extended
traveling exhibition schedule and continuing long-term display
at Talladega College. Treatment of the murals began in April
2011 with preparations for their removal and transportation to
the state-of-the-art facilities of the Atlanta Art Conservation
Center, an affiliate of the Williamstown Art Conservation
Center and High Museum of Art. . . .
Upon arrival at the Conservation Center, the murals were
unrolled, photographed, and further studied. Areas of insecure
paint that had been protected for transport with Japanese tissue
were fully consolidated, and the lifting paint was secured and
returned to its proper place.1 Once the paint layer was stabilized,
removal of seventy years’ worth of accumulated surface dirt,
soot, and grime could begin.
The murals were installed shortly after their completion,
without the application of a traditional varnish layer. Varnish
acts both as a surface saturator that enables colors to be seen
without the interference of light scattering, and as a sacrificial
protectant onto which dirt and grime are deposited. Without
the protection of a varnish layer, porous paint combines with
the dirt layers, making complete removal complicated, because
the paint and dirt occupy the same space. The safe separation
of one from the other requires an advanced level of care and
skill. . . . A two-part cleaning system was developed. The first
involved the application of a mild aqueous cleaning system
that successfully removed the greater part of the surface
contaminants without disturbing the delicate paint surface.2
What remained after the first cleaning was greasy, sooty
dirt that responded well to a mild organic solvent solution.3
Cleaning progressed across the surface following the natural
delineations of the composition. Cleaning each new passage
began with a new round of testing, with each section requiring
slight modifications of the general cleaning system’s strength or
proportions depending on the sensitivity of the paint layer and
the tenacity of the dirt layer.
After cleaning, the murals were backed with a secondary
fabric, called a lining, and attached to custom-crafted wooden
stretchers.4 The decision to apply a lining fabric and to stretch
the previously free-hanging murals accords with the original
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 9
intent of the project to prepare the paintings for an extended,
multiyear, traveling exhibition and then for perpetual display in
Savery Library. The construction of the stretchers was difficult
due to the sheer size of the two largest murals, The Court Scene
at 71 by 242 ¼ inches and Opening Day at Talladega College at
69 ¾ by 243 ½ inches. The murals would not have fit into most
museum elevators or hallways, nor would they fit through the
doors and up the stairs at Savery Library. Working with the
stretcher maker, we developed an innovative “folding” stretcher
design that allowed the largest murals to
be both safely transported to the various
venues and to fit back into their original
home. The stretcher design consists of a 2
by 2 ¾ inch “T” profile, with eight vertical
and two horizontal crossbars. A 38-inchwide dropout section of the stretcher
allows the center portion of the canvas
to be detached while retaining support at
both ends. This removable dropout made
it possible to wrap the painting around a
large-diameter tube and to secure the now
dimensionally wider but much shorter
mural into a specially constructed shipping
crate.5
Once stabilized, cleaned, lined, and
stretched, the murals were
ready for the process of
correcting the damages that
had occurred during their
years on display. The number
of damages was small and
mostly limited to paint loss
due to water damage-induced
flaking, small holes and tears
from original and remedial
attachment efforts, and errant
house paint from architectural
molding touchups. Canvas
tears were mended and
areas of missing paint filled
to match the level and
texture of the surrounding
original paint;6 paint loss
was retouched using pigments ground in reversible synthetic
resins;7 and to prevent future dirt and grime accumulation
from penetrating the paint surface, a thin spray of reversible,
non-yellowing synthetic varnish was applied.8
Several fascinating discoveries were made during conservation
treatment, beginning with a pencil signature found on the
reverse of Return to Africa mural even though the murals
themselves are unsigned; the signature is not, as expected, that
of Hale Woodruff, but of his studio assistant Robert Neal. In
addition, the tacking margins of the murals—the areas at the
perimeter that were obscured by wood moldings—contain
extensive passages of color testing that reveal some of Woodruff’s
working techniques. Though based on comprehensive sketches,
the murals were works in progress even after their installation
at Talladega College. Changes to the composition made during
execution have now become visible to us today due to the
increasing translucency of the oil-based paint layers. As oil paint
ages, its refractive index increases, rendering it more transparent.
This natural aging process allows underlying, once painted-out
passages to become visible once more.
The most exciting of these discoveries revolves around the
Return to Africa. In the lower right corner, lying against the
trunk at Cinqué’s feet, is an adze, a tool used for squaring up
lumber or hollowing out timbers. When the lower molding was
removed, we saw that a significant change had been made to
the composition after the work’s installation. The adze, which
begins at the molding line and displays a less-skilled hand
in execution, had originally been painted as a long gun with
the barrel pointing directly at Cinqué. The butt of the stock,
once masked by the molding, is now visible. Additionally, now
visible because of the old paint’s translucency are the flint lock
mechanism, the barrel, and its strapping, all visible through a
veil of paint representing the wooden handle of the adze. . . .
Early in my research to prepare for the conservation
treatment, I gained an appreciation for the importance of
Woodruff’s works, their beauty and their place in art history.
During the murals’ removal, it became clear how important
these works were to the Talledega community. Woodruff’s
murals are much more than just decoration, even more than
superb examples of the art form: they are intimately tied to
the heritage and legacy of the school. At one point, before the
removal of the first mural, a student—one of many who had
convened in the lobby of Savery Library that day—pulled me
aside and asked a favor. He made me promise that the murals
would receive the best of care, that nothing bad would happen
to them, and that they would returned in better condition,
ready to be seen and enjoyed by future generations of students.
Promise kept.
1. In-laboratory consolidation was accomplished using twenty-five percent BEVA 371b in
toluene activated with a miniature tacking iron.
2. The initial cleaning system consisted of a two-percent triammonium citrate solution - a
solution of citric acid in deionized water adjusted to desired pH using ammonium hydroxide at a pH of seven on cotton swabs.
3. The initial cleaning was followed by a one-to-one mixture of deionized water and naphtha on
cotton swabs. The greasy grime responded well to the mild organic component of the naphtha/
deionized water mixture while the deionized water cleared any remaining citric acid from the
initial cleaning.
4. The canvases, though robust, required additional support to remain planar. The murals were
adhered to Sunbrella one hundred percent polyester fabric prepared with BEVA 371b on the
vacuum hot-table.
5. A twenty four-inch diameter tube was used to support the section of the canvas where the
stretcher dropout was removed. Additional strengthening of the lining fabric in the area of
the dropout was achieved through the adhesion of 10 -Mil Mylar® sheeting to the reverse of the
lining fabric using BEVA 371b.
6. Tears were mended using Lascaux Textile Welding Powder 5060 (Nylon 12 powder)
activated with a miniature tacking iron. Filling was accomplished using Beckers Latexspackel.
7. Retouching was performed using Golden MSA colors.
8. Varnishing was accomplished using five percent solids Paraloid B-72 acrylic resin in toluene
and xylenes.
The final two Amistad murals, Return to
Africa, top, and The Court Scene.
10 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 11
Feature
Pinning Down History
Insects, America, and the Art of John Hampson
By Zoë Samels
Each academic year, a second-year student at the Williams College/
Clark Art Institute Graduate Program in the History of Art
is awarded the Judith M. Lenett Memorial Fellowship in Art
Conservation by the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. The
two-semester fellowship provides the student with the opportunity
to pursue an interest in American art through the research
and conservation of an American art object. This year’s Lenett
Fellow, Zoë Samels, worked with a collage constructed entirely
of entomological specimens, from the Fairbanks Museum &
Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Ms. Samels worked with
the guidance of Hélène Gillette-Woodard, head of the Center’s
objects department. The project culminated in a public lecture and
exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art. The article
below was excerpted and edited from that lecture.
T
he tall tale of John Hampson goes something like
this. In December of 1906, Hampson, a 70-year-old
machinist living in Newark, N.J., was injured after
falling out of a moving streetcar. He brought suit against the
North Jersey Street Railway Company, seeking $10,000 in
damages because, he claimed, his wounds prevented him from
hunting butterflies and beetles—a hobby that required him to
walk forty to fifty miles every day.
Neither the veracity nor the verdict of Hampson’s supposed
lawsuit can be confirmed, but the peculiar project of natural
history he left behind evidences his claim of entomological
12 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
erudition. Over the course of his life, Hampson created a
singular series of intricate collages assembled from tens of
thousands of insect specimens he’d caught himself, each work
illustrating a colorful scene of Americana. One of these works,
Hampson’s General Slocum, was the focus of my Lenett
Fellowship during the 2011-2012 academic year.
The scant information we know about John Hampson
comes from a copy of an obituary clipped from an unidentified
newspaper, which also contains the only photograph we have of
him. According to the article, Hampson was born in Cheshire,
England, where he was trained as a machinist. He came to the
United States in 1860. During the Civil War and not yet an
American citizen, Hampson worked in the government navy
yards. He lived or stayed in thirteen states—picking up an
interest in insects along the way—until 1877, when he settled in
Newark with his family. He worked briefly for Thomas Edison
in the inventor’s Menlo Park laboratory. When he died in 1923,
his collages were found hanging on the walls of his small home
in Newark.
If the fruits of Hampson’s labor were not here in front of us,
a description of these works would seem as exaggerated as Paul
Bunyan’s ox or John Henry’s race against the steam-hammer.
Over a period of roughly fifty years, he created eleven strange
shadowboxes from the bodies of more than 70,000 butterflies,
moths, and beetles. Hampson collected these specimens on his
aforementioned walks, armed with a net and a cyanide-laced
killing jar.
It is tempting to frame John Hampson’s
reinterpretation of familiar American
imagery, which ranges from portraits of
presidents and war heroes to intricately
designed flags and stars, within the
constructs of Outsider, Folk, or Self-Taught
Art. Certainly the little we know about
him—his day job as a machinist, the
excessive scale of his entomological efforts—
resists easy artistic categorization. Like
many artists whose work is termed Outsider
or Self-Taught, Hampson used found
materials, drew his subjects from existing
visual culture, and kept his works private.
Hampson’s entire oeuvre now resides in the collection of the
I found it most helpful to think about this work as it relates
Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
to American folkways – not only in art, but also in literature
Termed “Bug Art” by the museum’s staff, the curious collages
and music. Tall tales, blues songs, quilt patterns—these works
came into the Fairbanks’ collection in 1977 through the estate
use the vernacular to give voice to an invisible American
of the artist’s daughter. Seven of these works are currently on
experience. Cultural critic Greil Marcus used the term “Old,
display at the museum in two glass-fronted cabinets, sharing
Weird America” to describe an early anthology of American
the alcove with a giant replica of a horsefly. Three collages:
folk recordings that served to launch the 1960s folk revival.
Hampson’s work is much the same. I hoped that a closer look at General Slocum, a portrait of George Washington, and an
abstract, kaleidoscopic
General Slocum might
design, are considered
help me understand
too damaged to
Hampson’s vision of
exhibit. The Fairbanks
old, weird America.
Museum staff estimate
Hampson’s
that each collage took
collages piece
the artist three to four
together their iconic
years to complete.
Americana with a
Hampson’s
kind of entomological
General Slocum shares
pointillism. Though
its basic forms with
his insect specimens
the commemorative
are largely attached
statue of Major
intact, the artist
General Henry Warner
did not hesitate to
Slocum, erected in
transgress the rules
1902 on the battlefield
of scientific specimen
of Gettysburg. The
handling for his own
visual parallels between
visual ends, often
collage and statue
cutting through bodies
are many: in both,
and wings to get
the General is on
the neat boundaries
horseback, perched
between shapes that
atop a white pedestal
allow him such fine
bearing an inscription
detail. His breakdown
plaque. Hampson
of subject matter is
also evokes the
similarly fluid: beetles,
Above, General Slocum by John Hampson, after treatment. Opposite,
memorial’s placement
moths, and butterflies
Lenett fellow Zoë Samels at work on the insect collage.
within Gettysburg’s
are used for both
landscape by including a pair of cannons located in the statue’s
representational and decorative ends indiscriminately. In all
immediate vicinity.
the works, he used the dark thoraxes of insects to create lines
Slocum led his Union forces in several battles in the war’s
that radiate around the central images, infusing them with a
Eastern Theatre, as well as in Georgia and the Carolinas.
rhythmic energy reminiscent of beating insect wings. When
During the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the young
I first noticed these lines, I was reminded of Lincoln’s famous
general delayed leading his troops into the bloody skirmish,
evocation of the “mystic chords of memory” that sound from
earning him the derisory nickname “Slow Come.” His statue’s
battlefields and soldier’s graves, which he believed potent
inscription offers a more favorable view on his leadership at
enough to one day rebuild a more perfect Union. Hampson’s
Gettysburg, repeating his entreaty to his fellow Union officers
works express this collective American memory, but the world
that they must “Stay and fight it out,” as the battle waged on
they envision for the viewer remains mysterious.
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 13
WACC News & Notes
To create the work’s large fields of color, Hampson arranged
white and orange moths in neat lines. Smaller shapes, such as
the General’s indigo jacket and his horse’s coat, are constructed
from layers of wings stripped from their hosts’ bodies. The
exact species of these winged insects resist easy identification.
Hampson used beetles of various colors and sizes to add
decorative detail to General Slocum. The work exhibits at
least six varieties of beetles, four of which I have been able to
identify. Ladybugs make up the first two inscription lines, the
horse’s bridle, the cannon spokes, and parts
of the five-pointed stars. Tiger beetles are
used exclusively in the foreground, their
narrow shape mimicking the green blades
of the Gettysburg’s lawn. Shiny flea beetles,
identified by their black bodies and reddishbrown heads, are used for the remaining
lines of Slocum’s dedication, on the corner
stars, the cannons, and the horse’s tiny
hooves. Iridescent green dogbane beetles fill
in the wheel and star motif along the sides
of the tray and the cannon wheels.
The back of the work bears a paper label
that is neither original to the frame nor part
of the Fairbanks’ accession process, but is
nonetheless a piece of General Slocum’s
history. Dated 1938, it reads: “Picture made
of butterflies and beetles collected and
made by the late John Hampson in the
year of 1904. The number of butterflies and
beetles used in this picture is 9,751.” The
artist’s other collages exhibit similar labels
Detail of collage, showing Hampson’s use of butterflies as line and color. Opposite,
containing equally precise specimen counts.
a butterfly mounted by the author to study the artist’s collecting process.
General Slocum’s most visible damage
revealed, one can imagine how the viewer was transformed into was the loss of thousands of moths and butterflies across the
statue and its pedestal, giving these sections a haziness at odds
a spectator, suddenly privy to a strange sight hidden from view.
with Hampson’s usual visual clarity. All that remained was a
The tray’s backboard is covered with a wooden pinning
platform, which itself is overlaid with sheets of off-white coated field of empty pins, its ground littered with bits of wings and
desiccated bodies. The damage was the result of a second-wave
paper. Where the specimens have been lost, you can see how
insect occupation, this time as an infestation of pests that
Hampson gridded out the marble base section of the collage
treated the collage as a boxed lunch. While no active pests
to guide his placement of the specimens. The butterflies and
remained, their dried larva cases were scattered throughout the
moths are held in place with thin entomology pins clipped
tray. For reasons unknown, the orange-hued butterflies and the
close to the bodies, the wings lightly adhered to the coated
beetles proved unappetizing and remained intact.
paper with a natural adhesive, possibly hide or fish glue. The
Along the sides and bottom of the collage, a number of
beetles are affixed to cut paperboard shapes in linear rows with
beetles had come loose from their paperboard supports and
shellac and sometimes hide glue. Hampson camouflaged these
collected along the bottom edge. The patches of exposed
supports with paint or wax in corresponding colors.
for three days. Hampson’s repeats this maxim in his portrait
and crowns Slocum a “Great Northern Hero.”
Identifying Hampson’s subject matter laid the foundation
for my examination of the work’s structure and materials, the
first step in the conservation treatment. General Slocum is
housed in its original pine shadowbox fitted with a matching
frame. At one point in the work’s history, a roll-down shade
was attached at the top, evidenced by visible holes and wear
on the wooden frame. As the shade was lifted and the work
14 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
adhesive and shellac they left behind showed signs of flaking,
cracking, and discoloration. Because such a brittle support
leaves the beetles particularly vulnerable to vibration, even
regular handling of the work could have caused damage and
had to be carried out carefully.
The work’s wooden backboards were unstable, having bowed
outward over time. Such flexing can occur when boards are
exposed to changes in humidity or if the grain of the wood is
incorrectly aligned. Storing the object on its back, as happened
with General Slocum, can exacerbate this problem. The flexed
backboards had placed stress on the pinning board and coated
paper, causing a two-inch tear in the paper immediately above
the inscription plaque. Throughout my treatment, I was careful
to always rest the shadowbox on several layers of foam padding.
Once the areas of instability had been documented, one step
remained before I could begin treating the collage itself. Because
Hampson used a variety of organic and inorganic materials, I
needed to be sure that the adhesive I used to reattach the insects
and repair the paper tear did not put the work at risk for further
deterioration. This was a particular challenge given the dearth
of conservation scholarship on preserving insects in a work of
art rather than preventing or eradicating them.
I began cleaning the collage with a soft-bristled paintbrush,
dusting each beetle body and around the paperboard shapes.
I also removed debris, insect casings, or loose specimens
from the work’s surface, paying particular attention to the
bottom ledge of the frame. I decided not to clean the moths
or butterflies because of their fragility, although I did dust the
exposed entomology pins. If a beetle came loose during the
cleaning, I set it aside and marked its original location. Across
the statue and pedestal, I adhered any fragments of butterflies
and moths that seemed in danger of becoming completely
detached from the work. I decided not to attempt any additional
liquid cleaning of the exposed pins or tacks due to the risk of
corrosion. The only inorganic materials in General Slocum were
dark glass spheres and beads for the eyes of both horse and rider
and for Slocum’s buttons. These were cleaned with a solution of
fifty percent de-ionized water and fifty percent ethanol applied
with a cotton swab, taking care to prevent any of the solvent
from bleeding into the surrounding insect materials.
The tear in the paper support could not be repaired with
Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste, as originally hoped. The
aging paper was too brittle and the crack too narrow for this
relatively invasive technique. Instead, I brushed a small amount
of BEVA adhesive on top and under the overlapping tear,
just enough to lightly saturate the paper. A small piece of wet
strength tissue paper was laid on top to soak up any additional
moisture and secured with a small weight. The collage was
loosely covered and allowed to dry overnight.
The shadowbox’s glass front was cleaned with a solution
of deionized water and ethanol and large cotton swabs. After
drying. I repeated the process with a microfiber cloth. This
completed, the shadowbox was reassembled and the change
was striking. The rows of orange moths seemed to radiate out
in frozen waves from the work’s central figure. Each insect was
identifiable as a discrete form. Issues of stability aside, a good
cleaning was primarily what General Slocum needed.
Like any good tall tale, the story of John Hampson leaves
me with the suspicion I’ve been hoodwinked, both by the artist
and the curious collages he left behind. With a folk hero’s
confidence, Hampson placed his work comfortably between
entomology’s rational empiricism, the mutable mythology of
American history, and art’s mysterious draw. Attempts to locate
a singular meaning of Hampson’s work get lost somewhere
between his hazy biography, his orderly rows of insects, and his
choice of iconic historical subjects. And yet, these moth-strewn
microcosms continue to invite viewers in for a closer look,
prompting perpetual curiosity.
When General Slocum returns to the Fairbanks Museum &
Planetarium later this spring, it will be hung alongside several
of Hampson’s collages in much better condition. It might seem
a mistake to reinstall a work so damaged. Yet in some way,
General Slocum’s losses are the viewer’s gain, providing a peek
at Hampson’s working process. That this insider knowledge
does little to damper the compelling weirdness of these works,
that it in fact only makes them less comprehensible, is a strong
argument for the inclusion of “John Hampson’s Bug Art”
not only in the field of art history, but also into the canon of
America’s tall tales.
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 15
WACC News & Notes
Mongolian conservator completes residency at WACC
Reconstructing David Deconstructed
A
This intriguing sculpture titled David Deconstructed is a privately
removal of the surface grime
owned work made in 1988 by the artist H. Lee Hirsche. The artist
using a variable-speed vacuum.
created a whimsically intricate tableau that sits atop a wood
Remaining soil was removed
base and portrays the construction—or dismantling—of a bust
with small cotton swabs lightly
resembling Michelangelo’s David. The bust, made of painted
moistened with deionized water.
polymer resin, appears monumental next to the team of Lilliputian
The damaged and broken areas
workers, but the tabletop sculpture is only eighteen inches high
of scaffolding were repaired
by fourteen inches in diameter.
using dilute gelatin and a
n ongoing educational initiative between the Williamstown
Art Conservation Center and conservators from Mongolia
how to use it.
Luk and Larry Shutts, associate paintings conservator at the
continued as the Center hosted Nyamma Davgadorj for a
Atlanta Art Conservation Center, traveled in May to Ulaanbaatar
six-month residency in the WACC paintings department. The
to provide Davgadorj’s colleagues intensive training in the use of
residency, funded by the Asian Cultural Council, was part of a
the new vacuum hot table. Both table and training were funded
multi-year exchange program between WACC and Mongolian
by the U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation. A
cultural agencies and institutions including the Ministry of
supplemental grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding
Education, Culture, and Science, the Arts Council of Mongolia,
funded Shutts’s participation,
and the Cultural Heritage Center in the capital, Ulaanbaatar.
This was Davgadorj’s third residency at the Center, and by
far the longest. Previous stays, in 2009 and 2010, were a month
in duration. The six-month period, from November 2011 through
April, allowed the 28-year-old conservator to immerse himself in
“Right now,” Luk said, “Nyamma is the only one who has
experience with the vacuum hot table, so that in itself puts him in
a leadership role.”
Davgodorj’s influence in Mongolian conservation and
preservation activities is likely to increase. As a result of his work
state-of-the-art treatment
at WACC, he has been
practices.
invited by the University
of Delaware Graduate
“I learned a great deal
more,” he said, in diffident
School to attend its
but able English. “The
Winterthur Program in art
last two times were short.
conservation as a visiting
This time, six months,
scholar. The invitation
I worked on many
will allow Davgadorj to
paintings. I worked on
supplement his practical
many different paintings,
experience at WACC with
and many different [types
academic theory and
of] damage.”
scientific study.
The most dramatic
Cultural preservation
is an emerging profession
treatment Davgodorj
in Mongolia. There are
encountered during his
no formal education
recent residency involved
programs in the country,
WACC paintings conservator Cynthia Luk with Nyamma Davgadorj.
a work by the eighteenthcentury British genre
and conservators
The miniature construction site compels the viewer to take
Treatment began with gentle
polyvinyl acetate emulsion as
a closer look as the scaffolding (populated with workers and
necessary. Some of the delicate
equipment) spirals around both the inside and outside of David’s
repairs were reinforced with
head, even spilling onto the wood base. Close inspection is
Japanese tissue toned to blend
rewarded with painstaking details of industrious tradesmen,
with watercolors.
ladders, winches, and real metal chains. While the scaffolding
Cracks noted in the bust were
and ladders are wood, the miniature figures and equipment are
consolidated with dilute gelatin,
painted plastic (with some metal details). A ground of coarse
which did not affect the polymer
sand completes the scene.
resin and fed well into the fine
H. Lee Hirsche was born in 1927 in New London, Conn., and
cracks. Since the composition
studied under Josef Albers at the Yale School of Fine Art. Hirsch
of the resin was not identified,
eventually became professor of art at Williams College, where he
the water-soluble gelatin was
started the studio art department and taught for thirty-two years.
felt to be safer than an acetone
A talented and prolific artist, Hirsch created drawings, paintings,
or hydrocarbon-soluble adhesive, since certain polymers can be
and sculptures in a variety of media throughout his life. H. Lee
sensitive to these solvents.
Hirsche died in 1998 at the age of seventy-one.
David came to the lab with minor damage and a heavy layer
H. Lee Hirsche’s David Deconstructed.
The client wanted a bell jar or domed cover, to protect David
Deconstructed from surface dirt while lending an appeal to the
of surface dirt. The delicate scaffolding had the most issues
sculpture reminiscent of works in cabinets of curiosity. Finding
with breaks and broken sections requiring repair. Cracks were
a bell jar to accommodate the work was challenging; after an
also noted in the bust that were not visually distracting but a
extensive search a glass company was located that modified a
structural concern. The surface grime was particularly distracting
Pyrex vacuum bell jar to fit the work. The treatment and cover
and thick in some areas as the owner was appropriately cautious
returned David Deconstructed to a true visual delight.
about cleaning delicate aspects of the piece.
—Lauren LaFlam
traditionally travel abroad for training. The exchange with WACC
painter William Shayer. The painting came in with heavy overpaint
The WACC Paper Department recently
was arranged by WACC paintings conservator Cynthia Luk, who
from a previous restoration. In the course of removing the old,
mounted Roy Lichtenstein’s Wallpaper
acted as Davgadorj’s mentor and supervisor.
discolored paint layer, Davgodorj made one of those discoveries
with Blue Floor Interior for the Speed Art
that gives conservators goose pimples. In a small, nondescript
Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. The five-
projects that filled voids in his training, so he acquired some
section on the horizon, he found three figures that a previous
panel screenprint was mounted on separate
treatment experiences he’d never had before. I think by now,
restorer had painted out of the scene.
aluminum honeycomb panels aligned to create
“I’m very proud of Nyamma,” said Luk. “I was looking for
adding up all his training over all these projects, he has quite a
broad spectrum of experience.”
His training in Williamstown has made Davgadorj among the
most experienced conservators in his country, and in one area of
“First I cleaned the sky,” Davgodorj explained. “Then I found
a seamless image almost thirteen feet wide
three interesting things. We decided to clean, and in cleaning,
and eight-and-a-half feet tall. The mounting
these figures appeared.”
process required weeks of careful preparation,
In the formerly blank place, two travelers, one mounted on
three paper conservators, precise math and a
treatment, the use of a vacuum hot table for relining canvases,
horseback and the other walking beside, have reappeared, a
steady hand, as the prints required trimming to
he may be its leading expert. Until recently, there wasn’t a
small grace note restored to the composition.
the final printer’s dimensions prior to mounting.
vacuum hot table in his country. The Center for Cultural Heritage,
Davgadorj’s home institution, acquired one of the tables, which
is a staple in advanced conservation practice, a few months ago.
But until Davgadorj arrived home in early May, no one there knew
16 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
“Nayamma handled the reconstruction beautifully,” Luk
commented. “There is texture there. He’s a very talented artist.”
Davgodorj bowed his head slightly at the compliment, but a
“This redefined our concept of the words
‘large’ and ‘teamwork,’” remarked chief paper
conservator Leslie Paisley on completion.
look of pride filled his eyes.
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 17
WACC Staff
T‌homas Branchick
Director; Conservator of
Paintings/Dept. Head
Mary Catherine Betz
Associate Conservator of
Paintings
Thierry Boutet
Assistant Conservator of
Paintings/Atlanta
John Conzett
Office Manager
Report from Atlanta
Tech Notes, Spring 2012
Polish and shine for a surrealist sculpture
Among the many fascinating objects to have come into the Atlanta Art Conservation
Center lately, Ernest Trova’s Walking Jackman was particularly interesting. The owners
live in Atlanta, but this piece is located on the balcony of their Naples, Florida residence
overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. This led to some concerns about its final treatment.
Trova (1927-2009) was a self-trained painter and sculptor whose work aligned itself to
the American surrealist and pop art movements. He often based his figures on comic book
drawings, and commented that he considered his whole output a single work in progress.
Originally a painter, he became known for his sculpture. He lived all his life in St. Louis.
Walking Jackman is made of highly polished stainless steel. The sculpture is comprised
of six identical figures radiating outward from a solid base in the shape of a child’s jack.
Kristan Goolsby
Office Assistant/Atlanta
The piece was thickly coated with what was most likely polyurethane, which had aged and
Hélène Gillette-Woodard
Conservator of Objects/
Dept. Head
and was beginning to haze and delaminate in places.
Hugh Glover
Conservator of Furniture and
Wood Objects/Dept. Head
small metal bits embedded during the casting process. Areas of green corrosion were found
Matthew Hamilton
Photography Technician
before it was reduced with a stiff brush and rinsed with acetone on cotton swabs. This
Teresa Haskins
Accounts Manager
cloths and deionized water. Several applications of the gel were needed to fully remove
Rebecca Johnston
Conservator of Paper
solvent-cleaned twice using soft cotton cloths and petroleum benzene, followed by ethanol,
Henry Klein
Conservation Technician
base plates was reduced using 0000 steel wool and ethanol. The screws were solvent-
Montserrat Le Mense
Conservator of Paintings
corroded areas of the main sculpture with soft cotton swabs.
Cynthia Luk
Conservator of Paintings;
International Projects
which already has a history of corrosion, would be threatened by the atmospheric salt off
Jennifer McGlinchey
Assistant Conservator of
Paper and Photographs
Leslie Paisley
Conservator of Paper/Dept.
Head
Michelle Savant
Associate Conservator of
Objects/Atlanta
Larry Shutts
Associate Conservator of
Paintings/Atlanta
discolored; in places it resembled an orange peel. The coating had scratches, pits, cracks,
The stainless steel on all of the base plates had pitting and corrosion along the sides.
There was also brown and orange-brown corrosion around all of the surface inclusions,
mostly around feet or on bases.
A solvent gel was brush-applied over the sculpture’s surface and allowed time to work
broke down the coating enough to facilitate removal with finer brushes and soft cotton
the coating. Each piece was given a final rinse with deionized water. They were then
followed by acetone. Active corrosion on the ferrous screws that hold the bodies onto their
cleaned and coated with Renaissance wax. A polishing compound was applied to the
The owner did not want the pieces to be recoated. A big concern was that the metal,
the Gulf of Mexico. Thus, a
final round of solvent cleaning
was not performed, which
allowed the wax in the polishing
compound to remain in place
and protect the sculpture. We
recommended the owners
polish it twice a year, and they
agreed.
—Michelle Savant, Associate
Conservator of Objects
Sandra L. Webber
Conservator of Paintings
Ernest Trova’s Walking Jackman,
reinstalled after treatment.
18 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
Description of Original Picture Frames on
Watercolors by Charles Burchfield
By Hugh Glover
Head Conservator, Furniture and Wood Objects
The examination of frames reveals information about the tastes and priorities of artists,
collectors, and society at large. Frames are a snapshot of the age that produced them; the
frothy, intricate decorations of the Italian rococo period stand in stark contrast to the
restrained aesthetic that marks English neo-classical design. A case in point are eight frames
on watercolors by Charles Burchfield from the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute.
They were brought to the Center
for examination and description in
preparation for a future exhibition
and catalog.
The eight frames held works
created between 1929 and 1948 and
ranged in size from the smallest,
just under 29 by 37 inches, to
the largest, 65 by 57 inches. The
titles reflect the artist’s affinity for
nature and the visionary energy
his work: Sphinx and the Milky
Way [Fig. 1], Flame of Spring, Apple
Orchard, Country Blacksmith Shop,
Lace Gables, Pussy Willows, Skunk
Cabbage, and Village in the Swamps.
All of the frames are original
to the paintings they enclose.
Figure 1
Seven of the eight pictures were
in the collection of Edward Wales Root, Burchfield’s longtime patron and confidant.
Root bequeathed twenty-one Burchfield painting to MWPAI. The frames are made of
commercial, mass-produced rail stock that Burchfield painted off-white or grey, sometimes
painting over existing commercial gilding. In some cases he augmented the frames with
carving or widened them with additional wood strips. All the frames retain a plain
appearance that occasionally slouches toward the rustic. Their simplicity, notes MWP
director emeritus Paul Schweizer, makes the frames look “like poor cousins” beside more
opulently reframed Burchfields in other collections.
In examining the frames, a number of criteria were considered:
Professionally Made vs. Artist’s Shop Made
The terms “professionally/commercially made” and “artist’s studio” made are used to
distinguish between commercial production by a mill or frame shop and work completed
by the artist or his assistants. Relatively crude construction methods and materials are
understood to be from the artist’s studio. The artist’s studio would have had access to a
table-saw if it fabricated the liners on Sphinx and the Milky Way, Apple Orchard, and Flame
of Spring.
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 19
Tech Notes, Spring 2012
R ail Stock
Most of the rails and liners are a pale hardwood, probably maple; the rails on Apple
Orchard, Flame of Spring, and possibly Sphinx and the Milky Way are softwood,
probably pine. The various profiles for the rails were commercially prepared with
a spindle molder machine (shaper), where the wood was passed by a spinning head
fitted with profiled cutters. Spindle molding machines were introduced circa 1850
and they were well developed by the twentieth century for accuracy and volume
production.
Overall size: 64 ¾” x 57” x 2 ¼” Rail
sections C and the liner were
width: 6 1/16”
added by the artist’s studio. The
Profile
Frame: Ovolo top molding (1), a
small ogee (2), a flat (3), a cove
(4), a torus (5); the outside profile
is a cove (6), a small ovolo (7), and
a small cove (8). Liner: Flat with
Corner Joints
The artist’s studio would have received either assembled frames (with separate liners)
or long lengths of rail stock for cutting to size and joining. It is quite possible that
corners glued with hide glue were commercially prepared and those with white PVA
glue were prepared by the artist’s studio. Apple Orchard has PVA glue and Sphinx
and the Milky Way and Flame of Spring, whose corners are hidden, may have PVA
glue. Consistent nail technique and hide glue in Country Blacksmith Shop, Lace
Gables, Pussy Willows, Skunk Cabbage, and Village in the Swamps suggests professional
assembly. The corner joints were all completed before paint was applied.
Liners
All eight frames have flat or beveled liners painted after assembly with matte white or
off-white paint that contrasts with the color and luster of the frame paint. The liners
on Sphinx and the Milky Way, Apple Orchard, and Flame of Spring appear to have been
made by the artist’s studio since they are cruder and show table-saw marks.
Profiles
No two frames are identical in their size or molding profile, however all frames,
except Flame of Spring, have a rounded ovolo or torus top molding followed by a cove,
and these profiles are similar enough to assume they came from the same commercial
mill shop. The outer profiles on Sphinx and the Milky Way and Country Blacksmith
Shop are the same, and the profiles on Pussy Willows and Skunk Cabbage are the same
but for additions to the back edge on Pussy Willows.
Modifications
The outside profiles on Pussy Willows and Lace Gables were widened by the artist’s
studio with added wood strips (the first strips on Lace Gables appear to have been
professionally added); their corners are shaped with simpler rounded forms. Apple
Orchard has wood blocking for support, Sphinx and the Milky Way and Flame of
Spring have build-ups for support, and Flame of Spring also has added strips to
increase the rebate depth, all added by the artist’s studio.
Painted Finishes
All eight frames are painted, either off-white and toned and distressed (abraded to
resemble wear and reveal color), or painted variegated grey colors and distressed
(Sphinx and the Milky Way, Apple Orchard, Flame of Spring). The liners and the grey
colors are matte, and the off-white frame colors are satin gloss, probably a period oil
paint. The grey paint on Apple Orchard is water soluble. The extent of distressing the
20 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
1
Sphinx and the Milky Way 1946
bevel at sight edge.
by the artist’s studio, including the
7
A
8
B
C
wood lengths to which twelve
lengths of section A were added
(three lengths per rail). The
corners of A and B are mitered,
of C are butt joined and secured
commercially brass-gilded wood;
with corrugated nail fasteners; the
the paint is purposefully variegated
corners of the liner are mitered
and distressed to reveal the three
and secured with corrugated nail
paint colors. Liner: matte white
fasteners. The end-grain seams
paint.
and mitered corners on A are
with brass gilded surfaces;
4
Sections B and C are continuous
glued, and nailed; the corners
professionally prepared moldings
6
3
piecing of section A.
Three tones of matte grey paint on
Sections A and B were
5
assembly of the frame parts was
Paint Decoration
Assembly
2
secured with corrugated nail
fasteners. The frame and the liner
were painted before they were
fitted together with angled nails.
1
Flame of Spring 1948
Overall size: 47 7/16” x 37 ¾” x 2”
Rail width: 4”
Inscriptions
Top rail, ink on paper label: W-61
Charles E. Burchfield Flame ——Sp
—— [partly fragmented].
Profile
Frame: Small fillet top molding
(the only frame without a torus/
ovolo top molding) (1), a beveled
flat main profile(2), cove outside
profile (3). Liner: Flat liner (4)
with rounded sight edge (5).
Paint Decoration
Frame: Two tones of matte grey
paint over commercial brass
leaf gilding. The gilding is barely
visible. Liner: Matte white paint.
Assembly
The two parts of the frame, A
and B, were glued together,
shaped, and gilded commercially.
The rails were mitered and joined
with glue and nails. Section C
was added to the back by the
artist’s studio and secured with
long nails from the front that
were bent over on the back of C;
the corners of C are butt joined
and secured with corrugated nail
fasteners. The frame was painted
grey over the gilding and the
paint laps onto section C. The
liner was probably prepared by
the artist’s studio; the corners
are joined with miters, glue, nails,
and corrugated nail fasteners.
The liner was painted before
fitting to the frame with angled
nails. Section E is a simple nailed
addition by the artist’s studio to
increase the rebate depth.
2
3
A
4
5
D
C
E
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 21
B
paint varies; for example, the paint on Lace Gables and Pussy Willows (the two carved
frames) is more distressed than the paint on Blacksmith Shop and Skunk Cabbage. The
liner paint was not distressed.
The same off-white satin gloss paint type and color were used on five frames,
Country Blacksmith Shop, Lace Gables, Pussy Willows, Skunk Cabbage, and Village in
the Swamps; this group is similar in profile, wood type, liner, nailing, gluing, etc.,
implying they were framed during a short period rather than the seven year period of
completing the artwork (1929 to 1936). Two of this group of five (Lace Gables, Pussy
Willows) have outer-edge modifications added by the artist’s studio and the satin paint
is continuous over the additions, implying the satin paint was also applied by the
artist’s studio.
Members of the Consortium
Williamstown
Art Conservation Center
Carving
The corners on two frames, Lace Gables and Pussy Willows, were elaborated by the
artist’s studio with simple carving using a rounded file or rasp to form a symmetrical
pattern of hollows. The carving cut through the commercial brass gilded finish and
the filed surfaces were relatively rough when paint was applied.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,
MA 01267
Cornell University
—Ithaca, NY
Historic Deerfield, Inc.
Phillips Academy
—Andover, MA
Albany Institute of History & Art
—Albany, NY
Alice T. Miner Colonial Collection
—Chazy, NY
T‌he Arkell Museum
—Canajoharie, NY
Arnot Art Museum
—Elmira, NY
Art Complex Museum
—Duxbury, MA
Atlanta Historical Society, Inc.
—Atlanta, GA
Bennington Museum
—Bennington, VT
Berkshire Museum
—Pittsfield, MA
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
—Brunswick, ME
1
Pussy Willows 1936
Overall size: 41 3/8” x 33 ¾” x 2 ¼”
Rail width: 4 ½”
4
3
2
A
4
5
B
C
Inscriptions
Proper left rail, pencil: Leave width as it
is, cut length to 33 in. (33 1/8 exact)
Top Liner, pencil: Still Life
Bottom rail, pencil: Add stretcher frame
(3/4” to show). Still Life.
Cut for 25 ½ x 33 (25 5/8 x 33 1/8)
[rebate size]
Profile
Frame: Ovolo top molding (1), a cove
(2), a small ogee (3); outside profile
with two coves (4). Liner: Beveled flat
(5).
Paint Decoration
Frame: Off-white satin gloss with a thin
dark toning glaze, lightly distressed,
over commercial brass-leaf gilding.
Liner: Matte off-white paint.
Note: The same pallet was used on the
frames for Pussy Willows, Lace Gables,
Skunk Cabbage, Village in the Swamps,
22 | Art Conservator | Spring 2012
Charles P. Russell Gallery,
and Country Blacksmith Shop.
Carved Decoration
Two symmetrical hollowed file cuts at
the end of each rail (3 ½” x 1 ¼” x ¼”
approx. each) form stylized leaf corner
ornaments, applied by the artist’s
studio. The carving cut through the
commercial brass gilded finish and the
filed surfaces were relatively rough
when paint was applied.
Assembly
The commercially shaped and brassgilded frame A was widened with
added strips B and C secured with glue
and nails, and filler paste was used
to round the angles. The rails were
mitered, glued, and nailed together,
and the file carving completed.
Surfaces of B, C, and the filed
hollows are not gilded. The liner was
commercially prepared and mitered,
glued, and nailed together. The frame
and the liner were painted before fitting
the liner into place with angled nails.
—Clayton, GA
227 South Street, Williamstown,
Addison Gallery of American Art,
Gilding
Five frame profiles were supplied with commercial brass-leaf gilding: Sphinx and the
Milky Way, Flame of Spring, Lace Gables, Pussy Willows, and Village in the Swamps.
The gilded finish was painted over by the artist’s shop and the paint was distressed to
reveal small amounts of gilding; the paint on Flame of Spring is less distressed and the
gilding is barely visible. The gilding on Village in the Swamps has a red preparation
layer revealed by the distressing. Generally, the earlier gilding is now more visible due
to chipped paint.
Gershon Benjamin Foundation,
Deerfield Academy
—Deerfield, MA
—Deerfield, MA
Hood Museum of Art,
Dartmouth College
—Hanover, NH
T‌he Hyde Collection
—Glens Falls, NY
T‌he Lawrenceville School
—Lawrenceville, NJ
Mead Art Museum,
Amherst College
—Amherst, MA
Memorial Art Gallery,
University of Rochester
—Rochester, NY
Middlebury College Museum of Art
—Middlebury, VT
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
—South Hadley, MA
Munson Williams Proctor Arts
T‌he Rockwell Museum of
Mission Statement
Western Art
T
—Corning, NY
Roland Gibson Gallery, State
nonprofit institution, is to protect,
University of New York
conserve and maintain the objects
—Potsdam, NY
of our cultural heritage; to provide
St. Johnsbury Athenaeum
examination, treatment, consultation
—St. Johnsbury, VT
Smith College Museum of Art,
and related conservation services
—Northampton, MA
for member institutions, and for
Springfield Library and Museums
other nonprofit organizations,
Association
corporations and individuals; to
—Springfield, MA
Sterling and Francine Clark Art
Institute
Suzy Frelinghuysen and George L.K.
Morris Foundation
—Schenectady, NY
and to conduct research and dis-
—Montpelier, VT
seminate knowledge to advance the
Williams College Museum of Art
—Williamstown, MA
—Utica, NY
Museum of Connecticut History
—Hartford, CT
Neuberger Museum,
Atlanta Art Conservation Center
T‌he Daura Gallery at Lynchburg
College
—Lynchburg, VA
Eric Carle Museum of Picture
Book Art
—Amherst, MA
Farnesworth Art Museum
—Rockland, ME
Fort Ticonderoga
—Ticonderoga, NY
—Purchase, NY
—Concord, NH
New York State Office of General
Services, Empire State Plaza Art
Collection
—Albany, NY
Norman Rockwell Museum at
Stockbridge
—Stockbridge, MA
Picker Art Gallery,
Colgate University
—Hamilton, NY
Portland Museum of Art
—Portland, ME
Preservation Society of Newport
Vassar College
County
Frederic Remington Art Museum
—Ogdensburg, NY
Atlanta, GA 30341
New Hampshire Historical Society
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center,
—Poughkeepsie, NY
profession.
Institute
6000 Peachtree Road
—Hartford, CT
training of conservators; to promote
issues pertinent to collections care;
Vermont Historical Society
Purchase College, State University
—Waterville, ME
cultural interest; to participate in the
and increase the awareness of the
of New York
Connecticut Historical Society
respect to the care and conserva-
the importance of conservation
—Lenox, MA
Union College
Manchester Historical Society
—Manchester, CT
conduct educational programs with
tion of works of art and objects of
—Williamstown, MA
T‌he Cheney Homestead of the
Colby College Museum of Art
‌he mission of the Williamstown
Art Conservation Center, a
—Newport, RI
Rhode Island School of Design
Alabama Historical Commission
—Montgomery, AL
Booth Western Art Museum
—Cartersville, GA
Brenau University
—Gainesville, GA
Columbia Museum of Art
—Columbia, SC
T‌he Columbus Museum
—Columbus, GA
High Museum of Art
—Atlanta, GA
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
—Montgomery, AL
Telfair Museum of Art
—Savannah, GA
Museum of Art
—Providence, RI
Williamstown Art Conservation Center | 23
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