Volume 5, Number 2, June 1983, pp.9-11

Regional News

Bay Area News

In March, the Bay Area Art Conservation Guild held an airbrush workshop conducted by painter and graphic artist Michael Murphy at his studio in Emeryville. He discussed types of equipment needed, maintenance, and techniques.

A seminar on ceramic glazes, co-sponsored by Friends of Terra Cotta, College of Arts and Crafts, and the Association of Preservation Technology was held early in April at California College of Arts and Crafts.

James Bernstein and Inge-Lise Eckmann, co-directors of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Conservation Lab, conducted a tour of the newly renovated painting and paper conservation facilities featuring their new "hi-tech" safety features including movable Ruemelin Welding fume exhausters. Staff members were all on hand to discuss various treatments in progress.

Later in April, a demonstration of the Ultrajet high pressure water blasting system, a product of Wakatsuki Technology International was given to interested B.A.A.C.G. members. This system can deliver 28,000 psi, volume of 32 to 39 oz. per minute of water. It has been used to degrease and deburr delicate electronic circuit boards without surface damage, even to areas of gold plating. It has many potential uses for conservation including removal of overpaint, lichen growth, etc., from objects made of metal, glass, ceramic, marble, etc. The system was recently used to clean the marble sculpture in front of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

The newly elected officers of the Bay Area Art Conservation Guild are Anita Noennig as President, Genevieve Baird as Vice President, Robin Tichane as Secretary, Liz Crumley as Treasurer, Keiko Keyes for Board of Directors, and Roger Broussal for Board of Directors. Still remaining on the Board of Directors are Liz Crumley and Gene Munsch.

Debra Evans has joined the staff of the Western Regional Conservation Lab at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums as Associate Paper Conservator.

Since last year's WAAC meeting in San Francisco, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have undergone extensive construction and renovation in preparation for the Vatican Collections exhibition which opens on November 19, 1983. The old American galleries at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum are the focus of this renovation. The Vatican exhibition will be housed in both the temporary exhibition area of the de Young Museum and the galleries which normally house the American collection. After the Vatican exhibition, the American galleries will reopen with an increase of gallery space of about 75%.

In addition to construction of new gallery space at the museum the paintings conservation department of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has added a new room to house woodworking equipment. The room is more-or-less soundproof and has a negative air pressure to isolate dust produced in the room.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have a new telephone number: (415) 221-4811, Textiles, extension 3511, Paintings, extension 3512, Decorative Arts, extension 3513.

Los Angeles

Pat Reeves, Textile Conservator at LACMA, spent the last week in March in New York where she gave two talks, one at the New York Textile Conservation Group Meeting and the other at a symposium in honor of Kathryn Scott at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Art, New York University.

Catherine C. McLean has been hired by LACMA as Assistant Textile Conservator. For the past year and a half she has been at the Museum as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Textile Conservation.

Glenn Wharton, a Mellon Fellow in Objects Conservation at LACMA, will be the site conservator for the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Bodrum, Turkey this season. Glenn's work will include the conservation of artifacts from marine environments and the reproduction of the Institute's most important finds. A major part of the work will be the treatment of eleventh century Islamic glass excavated from a shipwreck near Serce Liman, off the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

Victoria Blyth-Hill, Leslie Kruth, and Robert Aitchison recently returned from three weeks of intensive paper-related studies in Japan in conjunction with the International Paper Conference. On May 5, at LACMA, they presented slides which illustrated papermaking techniques from all over the world as demonstrated at the Conference and specifically on the paper-making process at the village of Kurodani, Japan. They also showed slides of several mounters' studios and discussed some traditional Japanese conservation and restoration techniques as well as how these materials, tools, and techniques can be used by the Western Conservator. The traditional Japanese woodblock process was also presented in the slides.

Yoshiki Kobayashi spent a three-month internship in the Painting Conservation studio at LACMA. Mr. Kobayashi is a student of Masako Koyano (NYU '67) at her Art Conservation Laboratory in Tokyo. While he was with LACMA, he also trained the paper conservation staff in the making of drying racks for Japanese paintings on paper.

David Kolch, Painting Conservator, delivered a paper at the Baltimore meeting of the AIC on "Materials and Technique in an Unfinished Altarpiece by Rosso Fiorentino." He would appreciate knowing of unfinished Italian 15th and 16th century paintings in collections handled by WAAC members.

The painting conservation staff is examining an preparing treatments for the Modern and Contemporary Painting collections at LACMA in preparation for th installation of the future galleries in the Robert O. Anderson building.

Four WAAC members took part in a day long conservation symposium sponsored by the Folk Art Council of the Craft and Folk Art Museum on Saturday, May 7. They were Nancy Conlin Wyatt, Associate Textile Conservator at LACMA; Benita Johnson, Objects Conservator at the Museum of Cultural History at UCLA; Patrice Pinaquy, Furniture Conservator; and Stanley Derelian, Conservator of Tapestries and Oriental rugs. The purpose of these symposia, which are held every year, is to inform people how best to care for their own collections and to recognize danger signals which require the services of a professional conservator. The program was organized by Pat Reeves, who is Senior Textile Conservator at LACMA.

Bob Aitchison has completed his NEA grant at LACMA and returns to his private practice in paper conservation at 6754 Wedgewood Place, L.A., CA 90068.

Mark Watters and Bob Aitchison presented a lecture at the Southern California Genealogical Society on April 17. The talk covered the care and conservation of documents and archival materials.

Mo McGee, UCLA Art History graduate student and student intern at the J. Paul Getty Museum has been studying the principles of paper conservation under Victoria Blyth-Hill at the LACMA Conservation Center as part of an ongoing exchange between Getty and County Museum staff.

Lorenzo Turci and Giovanni Marussich, specialists in wood conservation, came from Florence, Italy for three weeks to assist in the structural work on two early Italian panel paintings: "Madonna and Child Enthroned," by the Master of the Bambino Vispo and "Miraculous Draught of the Fishes" by Joachim Beuckalaer at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Dr. Frank Preusser has joined the staff at the J. P. Getty Museum as Conservation Scientist. He will be working for the Museum and the Getty Institute. Dr. Preusser came to the Getty from the Doerner Institute in Munich.

The J. Paul Getty Museum will be welcoming Mark Leonard as Associate Painting Conservator. Mark will be leaving his position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Karl Faltemeier, Objects Conservator form the Antiken Museum Sammlung Ludwig in Basle, Switzerland was recently at the J. Paul Getty Museum. While at the Getty he presented two seminars: Casting of Ancient Artifacts, and Artifacts in Plastic from Prehistory to Modern Times.

Patricia Tuttle from the J. P. Getty Museum is participating in a three month program in Venice, Italy on stone conservation. The program is sponsored jointly by UNESCO and ICCROM.

Dr. Giorgio Torraca presented a week-long course on "Material Science for Conservation" at the J. P. Getty Museum in May. The seminars covered a discussion of organic molecules, solvents and solubility, synthetic resins and adhesives, metals and corrosion, deterioration of porous brittle materials and conservation of stone and mural paintings. Dr. Torraca is Deputy Director of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome.

Northwest

A hands-on workshop, taught by Bay Area conservator Geoffrey I. Brown, will be held at the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon from June 21-25. It will cover examination and survey procedures, washing, mechanical dry cleaning methods, couching to loose and supported linings, blocking, support frame assembly, and fibre identification. It is co-sponsored by Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, the Portland Art Museum, and the Oregon Historical Society. For more information call Sandy Troon at (503) 226-2811.

The Registrar's Committee (Western Region) and the Washington State Registrar's held their annual meeting March 25, 1983. The day long meeting was hosted by the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. Susan Torntore, Curator, gave a slide presentation on conservation and curatorial care of costume collections which was- followed by tours of OHI's costume storage. twenty-eight people attended.

New staff members at the Thompson Conservation Laboratory, Portland, Oregon are Elizabeth Chambers, H. Bredt Handy, and Bernadette Opie.

Joan Samuels will be leaving the Portland Art Museum to undertake an Advanced Internship in Conservation at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.

Two of BACC's lab assistants, Monica Jaworski and Marc Harnly, are leaving this summer to attend the Cooperstown Graduate Program next Fall.

Luisa Pari is n working at the Conservation Laboratory of Fine Arts at Brigham Young University for a 12 month period. Her hiring has recently filled the one-year internship position within the paintings laboratory. Miss Pari is a third year intern from the regional conservation center (ENAIP) in Lombardy, Italy.

Work is progressing on the huge project of the C.C.A. Christensen Panorama Series consisting of 21 paintings measuring approximately 7' x 10', which are being prepared for the opening exhibit at the opening of the new museum for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City in mid-1983. Look for articles and papers to be presented in the future on spacing systems for paintings with seams and the uses of silicone adhesives.

Scott Haskins recently participated by presenting a paper on The Technique of Affresco During the Italian Renaissance; "The Church of San Giovanni Battista, Lumezzane (Brescia), Italy: The Conservation of the Last Renaissance Affrescoes." The presentation was made to the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association Annual Meeting during the week of April 8,9 at Brigham Young University. The meeting was attended by Medieval and Renaissance scholars from throughout the United States.