Jan 2000 Volume 22 Number 2

Regional News

SAN FRANCISCO

Lesley Bone and Elisabeth Cornu at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (FAMSF) Objects Conservation Laboratory have been involved in The St. Francis of Assisi show and the Aboriginal show. Recently Lesley completed the conservation and mounting of a large Maya Stela from the Peten region of Central America. Elisabeth continues with her regional duties as conservator for the San Franciso Airport exhibitions.

Elisabeth attended the 4th International Congress of the Conservation of Cultural Patrimony in La Habana, Cuba, from 11-14 October, 1999. The Congress was held at the National Center for Conservation, Restoration and Museology in La Habana. It covered preventive conservation subjects such as care of collections, climate mitigation efforts, as well as management of difficult conservation treatments at historic sites. The conference attracted participants from numerous Latin American countries and several participants from the United States.

Several short-term conservation interns are passing through the FAMSF Objects Lab. Patricia Melo, Conservator of the Museo de la Tertulia in Cali, Colombia, spent several weeks observing exhibition conservation and treatment techniques. Lucia Coronel, a preservation architect from Ecuador, is currently spending a two-month internship in the lab learning exhibition seismic techniques and preventive conservation techniques employed at FAMSF.

Patricia O'Regan, at the FAMSF Paintings Conservation Lab, returned to work in October. She and her husband Mike welcomed twins Oona and Lucie on April 27, 1999.

Antoinette Dwan completed a five day survey of the permanent paper collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. She is currently treating a complex collection of ozalid papers with colored pencil, marker pens, and other sensitive media along with extensive tape problems.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) hosted the annual WAAC conference in November. Theresa Andrews, photograph conservator at SFMOMA, attended a five-day course in New York in June on the Pictorial Processes of the Photo-Secession. The course was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and held at NYU and the Metropolitan Museum. The course focused on the practice, identification, connoisseurship and preservation of pictorialist processes used by the Photo-Secession. After the workshop in NYC, Theresa traveled to Rochester to the Eastman House to take a one-day workshop on the collodion process. In September, Theresa attended a three-day workshop at Jose Orraca's studio exploring "Chemical Treatments" used by photographers.

Paula De Cristofaro of SFMOMA, and Alina Remba, on contract at SFMOMA, recently completed an ongoing survey of paintings in the permanent collection of the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California. Alina will be working two days a week on painting treatments in the Painting Department at SFMOMA, focusing on Hans Hofmann paintings from the Berkeley Art Museum.

Harry Cooper and Ron Spronk from the Harvard University Art Museum, with the assistance of SFMOMA's Conservation staff, have been carrying out an in-depth examination of the recently acquired Mondrian "Composition No. III Blanc-Jaune" in SFMOMA's permanent collection. Technical information relating to the Mondrian will appear in a catalogue for an up-coming Mondrian exhibition at the Harvard University Art Museum in spring of 2001.

In September, Michelle Barger attended the "Preservation of Plastics" course at the Campbell Center, Mount Carroll, Illinois which was taught by Julia Fenn of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The course proved to be very helpful in preparation for the Eva Hesse exhibition which will open at SFMOMA in 2002.

Dawne Steele-Pullman completed her fellowship at SFMOMA in paintings this fall and is working for the next five months on an internship in Tokyo, Japan.

Two new advanced fellows have joined the staff of the SFMOMA, with funding from the I.M.L.S. and San Francisco's Haas Fund. They will work with staff conservators for the next two years. Katharine Lockett comes most recently from a Kress Advanced Internship at the Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard University Art Museums. Martha Singer has joined the conservation staff at SFMOMA as the first Fellow in objects conservation. Martha is from Quebec City, where she treated 20th century sculpture at the Centre de Conservation du Quebec, and ethnographic and historic objects at the Musee de la Civilisation.

Donna Strahan has joined the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco as Head of Conservation. She joins Mark Fenn (objects), Meg Geiss-Mooney (textiles), Debra Fox (paper/paintings), and Lisa Lee (administrative assistant). They are all working toward moving the collection to the New Asian during 2002.

Genevieve Baird and her firm Rief & Associates just completed work on Lotta's Fountain in San Francisco. This cast-iron fountain is a 1875 gift to San Francisco from Lotta Crabtree, a world renown entertainer who got her start in the Gold Rush fields of California. The project took nine months and involved dismantling the entire fountain into its 200 parts and stripping paint layers and corrosion scale off the pieces. The fountain's electrical and plumbing systems were also repaired and the fountain now lights up at night providing running water on special occasions.

Paloma Anoveros, Collections Manager at Lucasfilm, Ltd. Archives and regional reporter for the San Francisco Bay Area returned to work in May after the birth of her second child, Diego Anoveros Frankel in January 27, 1999.

Paloma and her staff at the Archives, Susan Copley and Danielle Roode, have been working on "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth" touring exhibition, which opened at the San Diego Museum of Art last September. The exhibition, which originated at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, was organized for the tour by SITES and will travel to five more venues in the US. The Archives is also working on an exhibit entitled "The Art of Star Wars," which will open at the Barbican Art Center in the UK in April 2000. Other projects include storage of part of the matte paintings collection on newly installed rolling painting racks and the implementation of bar codes for numbering the collection.

Regional Reporter:
Paloma Garcia-Anoveros
Lucasfilm Ltd. Archives
415/622-1650
paloma@lucasfilm.com

SAN DIEGO

Alfredo Antoginini has been working on a life-size, Spanish 16th-century oil painting on unlined canvas of San Antonio de Padua, from the collection of the late Cyril Katkow of New York.

Paintings conservator Betty Engel and paper conservator Frances Prichett both attended the "Mastering Inpainting" course at the Campbell Center of Historic Preservation in October. The course was taught by James Bernstein, conservator in private practice in San Francisco. Frances Prichett also attended the "Broad Spectrum -- The Art and Science of Conserving Colored Media on Paper" at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Monica Jaworski visited Manhattan in October where she visited the studios of Peter Fodera and Harriet Irgang, as well as the conservation lab of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Richard Mulholland, second-year student in the MA Conservation of Fine Art Program at the U. of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, interned for six weeks during August and September with Frances Prichett in her private paper conservation practice.

Regional Reporter:
Frances Prichett
Paper Conservator
5235 35th Street
San Diego, CA 92116
619/283-5011

TEXAS

Mark Van Gelder is currently (and for the next several months) in the process of restoring seven, decoratively painted historic vault doors in the Texas State Capitol. As Mark mentions in his report: "I say 'restoring' because, although standard conservation principles are integral to the process, the work involves an extensive amount of re-creation and aesthetic reintegration of the extensively damaged and previously entirely over painted original surfaces."

Richard Trela, Senior Paintings Conservator and Director of the Conservation Center at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum (PPHM), completed a survey of 2,200 fine art objects in the PPHM collection. The survey was funded by The Museum Loan Network.

Rick also completed the treatment proposals and budgets for 2 of 3 PPHM collection projects which are designated Save America's Treasures projects. In September, he completed the treatment of the second bomber folk art piece from the American Airpower Heritage Museum in Midland. The treatment of a work commemorating the B-24 was completed in September 1998, one on the B-17 was completed in September 1999, and another B-17 work is currently underway.

Karen Pavelka at the Preservation and Conservation Studies Program (PCS) at the University of Texas at Austin Graduate School of Library and Information Science, reports that the new conservator students at PCS are: Sara Holms, Ann Lindsey, Nora Lockshin, Sarah Reidell, and April Smith. New preservation administration students at PCS are: Amy Fileatreau, Hannah Frost, Maria Gonzales, Melissa Tyler, Ann Wood, and Valeria Werner.

In January internships will begin for: Christine McCarthy at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, Eliza Gilligan at NEDCC, Jen Hain at the Hunt Botanical Library, Tara Kennedy at NARA, and Kozuko Hioki at the University of California, Berkeley. Karen also gave a paper at the conference "Reversibility - Does It Exist" held at the British Museum in September.

Martha Simpson Grant is is pleased to announce that she has moved her objects conservation studio to a new location. Her new address is: 1718 Richcreek Rd., Austin, TX 78757 (512) 371-9387.

Barbara Brown, Stephanie Watkins, and Ken Grant, Conservators at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRHRC) at the University of Texas at Austin, along with HRHRC Senior Photography Curator Roy Flukinger, presented a one-day workshop entitled: "Identification and Care of Photograph Collections" for members of the Texas Association of Museums. Workshop participants included 24 museum professionals from collections throughout Texas. The workshop was held at the Lady Bird Johnson National Wildflower Center in Austin, TX on Nov. 1.

In October, Clara von Waldthausen, who specializes in photograph conservation in the conservation training program at the Instituut Collectie Nederland in Amsterdam, completed a one-year internship with Barbara Brown in the photograph conservation lab at the HRHRC. Clara now back in Amsterdam and working on her final projects and research. She will graduate in June 2000.

Jiuan-jiuan Chen, now a second-year student in the Buffalo State College Art Conservation Program, completed her summer work project in the photograph conservation lab at the HRHRC. She and Clara collaborated in the treatment and housing of a group of nineteen panorama photographs during their time together in the lab.

Olivia Primanis spent the week of November 1-5 teaching album structures and their conservation at the School of Conservation, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Regional Reporter:
Ken Grant
Conservation Department
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
P.O. Box 7219
Austin, TX 78713
512/471-9117, fax 512/471-9646
kgrant@mail.utexas.edu

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Besides the usual field work this summer (in Montana, Texas, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming and Utah), J. Claire Dean was amongst the first applicants to be granted accreditation to the UKIC. She has also just returned from a three week trip to South Africa and Swaziland where she taught the rock art conservation theory and practice section of the Master's degree program in rock art studies at the Rock Art Research Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Teaching involved both classroom time and field work in the bush, and she has been asked to continue to act as the Centre's consulting conservator into the future.

Carol Pratt attended the conference "The Broad Spectrum: the Art and Science of Conserving Colored Media on Paper" in Chicago, October 5-9, 1999.

Jack Thompson conducted CAP surveys at the Frazier Farmstead Museum in Milton-Freewater, OR and the Coquille Indian Tribe Museum at Coos Bay, OR. Jack's article, "On Restoring Sacred Objects" published in Leather Conservation News, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1998) is now available on the web at http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byauth/thompson/sacred with color illustrations.

After nearly one year in construction, Peter Malarkey's new conservation studio is up and running. To ensure a climatically tight working area, this required demolishing an old garage and constructing a new facility from scratch. He is continuing work on regional private, public and museum pieces.

Regional Reporter:
Peter Malarky
Phone (206)409-7672
pmpc@att.net

GREATER LOS ANGELES / SANTA BARBARA

Congratulations to Abby Hykin and Gordon Hanlon, both formerly of the Getty, who were married on New Year's Day in Santa Barbara. By the time of publication they will have relocated to Boston where both will take up new positions at the Museum of Fine Art.

1999 was a year of significant change for LACMAs Conservation Center. In August, Victoria Blyth-Hill was appointed the permanent Head of the Conservation Center, reporting directly to LACMAs CEO, President and Director Dr. Andrea Rich.

A new research facility for the study of laser-cleaning techniques was established in the fall of 1999. Funded in part by grants from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training and the Kress Foundation, the Laser Cleaning Center is an important resource for the study and testing of laser-related cleaning technologies. The principle investigator for the center, Meg Abraham, is coordinating projects with staff at LACMA, as well as with colleagues at the Getty and other institutions, to explore the uses of laser cleaning techniques in conservation. In addition, Dr. Frank Preusser will be consulting on laser-cleaning projects.

The Conservation Centers staff has expanded in other ways, with the addition of an administrative coordinator, Virginia Lehman.

As the museum undergoes major current renovations and looks forward to large-scale construction programs in the future, the Conservation Center is finding itself playing an important role in planning strategies. However, the growing permanent collection and an active exhibition schedule remain a focus of the Conservation Center's work.

"Van Goghs van Goghs," LACMAs record-breaking exhibition from the van Gogh Museum, involved the conservation staff in many ways, including planning and installation.

"Made in California," LACMAs millennium exhibition promises to be another ambitious project, encompassing one hundred years of California-made art. Conservators are busy preparing works for the show, which will include everything from Schindler furniture to designer fashions. The exhibition will open this September, and a portion of it will travel to the Oakland Museum of Art in 2001.

Last October, LACMA hosted Sister Wendy and a film production team for filming in LACMAs galleries. The special, profiling six American museums, is expected to air some time next year.

In November, Joe Fronek, of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, traveled to Buenos Aires and Sao Paolo to interview candidates for an internship in paintings conservation at LACMA, made possible by a generous grant from the Lampadia Foundation and the Getty Grant Program. The internship is funded for three years; Anamaria Neves from Brazil and Rocio Boffo from Argentina were previous Lampadia Getty grant recipients in 1998 and 1999.

One of LACMA's most famous artifacts, the Ardabil Carpet, is now at the Textile Conservation Studios in the Hampton Court Palace in Surrey, England for conservation treatment. Catherine McLean will work with Julie Travis and David Howell to develop the treatment protocol. The conservation team will stay in close contact with LACMA staff through regular visits and frequent e-mails with attached digital images of their progress. The studios at Hampton Court were chosen for many reasons, including their 30 x 20 feet wash table that is large enough to accommodate the 23 x 13 feet carpet.

Susan R. Schmalz is now the Assistant Conservator of Textiles at LACMA. This, combined with her new Professional Associate status with AIC, makes for a momentous occasion. During the fall, Sylvie Francois started as a volunteer in the textile conservation lab at LACMA. Sylvie is a recent graduate of the Textile Conservation Centre at the University of Southampton. In January, she will return to her home in Montreal where she will begin work as a consultant with the Cirque du Soleil, developing a costume archive.

Chail Norton, LACMA paper conservation technician, and Dr. Terry Schaeffer presented a paper at WAAC in San Francisco on zeolite-containing mat boards for passepartout enclosures for works of art on paper.

The city of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department recently selected Williams Art Conservation and a multidisciplinary team of conservators and an art historian to carry out a comprehensive project for the assessment, conservation and maintenance of the city's murals. Donna Williams, Leslie Rainer, Michael Several, Chris Stavroudis, and Aneta Zebala will inventory, survey, and prioritize for treatment city sponsored murals in Los Angeles. Following selection by a committee of experts, ten murals will be treated, potentially with the assistance of the original mural artist. Finally, murals will be rededicated, and general maintenance guidelines will be drafted for the city's murals which number over 400. An educational outreach program will be an integral part of the project to encourage community awareness of the significance of murals in Los Angeles.

The Autry Museum of Western Heritage welcomes Richard Moll, paper conservator to the conservation team. Richard graduated with a Master of Art Conservation Degree from Queens University at Kingston. Since leaving the National Archives of Canada he has been in private practice in Kingston, until lured to LA by seriously better weather conditions and a great lab.

Carolyn Tallent spent three weeks in November at the Shasta Historical Museum in Redding, CA, surveying the Boggs Collection of California art. She examined over 70 paintings and did minor treatments on 27 of them.

Duane Chartier of ConservArt Associates, Inc. attended the National Trust for Historic Preservation annual meeting in Washington D.C. on October 19-24, as vice president of the National New Deal Preservation Association, Inc., a new non-profit organization. The association is devoted to the study and preservation of the New Deal legacy and intends to lobby the federal government as well as individual states to support preservation projects related to New Deal works.

Duane also gave an invited talk at a symposium on "Connoisseurship and Authenticity," held at Trinity College, Washington, D.C., November 10, 1999. The title of the presentation was "A New Paradigm for Art Authentication: Science, Technology and Statistics." This talk included recent scientific and conservation work done in support of the authentication of a newly discovered work "A Study for Valley Farm" by John Constable. Some art historical aspects of this painting have been published in The Burlington Magazine, September 1, 1999, in an article by collaborator Dr. Fred Notehelfer (UCLA) titled "Constable and the 'Woodbridge Wits."

ConservArt Associates, Inc., would like to welcome two new staff: Holly Fiedler, Assistant Conservator, a recent graduate of the Queen's University Art Conservation Program and Caroline Eidam from Baden-Baden, F.R.G., as a preprogram intern for a period of six months.

Gassia Armenian has been actively involved in the preparation of several exhibits at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. The most recent exhibits are "Recycle/Re-seen, Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap" and "African Musical Instruments." In addition to her work in the Conservation Labs, Gassia is researching bast fiber textiles for an upcoming exhibit at the museum.

In October, Odile Madden joined the Conservation Department at the Fowler as a post-graduate fellow supported by renewable private funding. She was previously at the NYU Conservation Center and spent her fourth year internship at LACMA. She will be involved in a variety of projects, beginning with treatments for the upcoming African Musical Instruments and Lega exhibitions.

Volunteer Linda Clougherty spent three weeks in September cataloguing and packing for storage artifacts uncovered in an excavation at Horace's Villa in Licenza, Italy.

Roz Westmoreland and Shelley Svoboda have completed examinations and technical reports of 166 British paintings in the Huntington Art Gallery in preparation for the forthcoming catalog of the collection. Rica Jones, Paintings Conservator at the Tate Gallery, and Joyce Townsend, Conservation Scientist from the Tate, consulted on several paintings by Reynolds and Turner, coinciding with research they have undertaken on British artists.

Regional Reporter:
Virginia Rasmussen
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
213/857-6168
vir@art.lacma.org

OKLAHOMA

Elizabeth Jablonski, a Queen's University Master of Art Conservation student worked in the Conservation Department of the Gilcrease Museum during the month of September on a rehousing project for W.R. Leigh paintings and studies.

Alex O'Donnel of Rhode Island visited the Gilcrease Museum's Conservation Department to treat Kiowa and Comanche lattice cradles for an exhibition organized by the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University.

Toby Murray, Preservation Officer of Tulsa University for 16 years has accepted a job as Preservation/ Conservation Librarian for the James R. Dickinson Library at the University of Las Vegas in Nevada.

The Oklahoma Conservation Congress hosted a November meeting "Archives in Small Museums" and "Volunteerism" at the national Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Regional Reporter:
Gayle S. Clements
Department of Conservation
Gilcrease Museum
Tulsa, OK
918/596-2780
clem@webzone.net

ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION

Heather Tudhope, RMCC Paper Conservator, attended the Broad Spectrum conference in Chicago about color media on paper. Hays Shoop and Victoria Montana Ryan, RMCC Painting Conservators, attended the annual WAAC conference in San Francisco.

RMCC said good-bye to two student assistants in the lab. Kate Smith, a summer intern from the State University of NY (Buffalo) program conserved a painting of Saint Peter for a private collector. Jennifer DiJoseph, who in June started assisting Heather Tudhope in the Paper lab, is leaving to continue her education at San Francisco State University. Good luck, Kate and Jennifer!

Under the direction of Jude Southward, the Denver Museum of Natural History (DMNH) has begun implementation of an Institute for Museum and Library Services Conservation Project grant to improve environmental and storage conditions for 570 oversize zoological cranial and post-cranial materials. Jude will also coordinate a move of collections into improved storage areas to make way for a new Space Science exhibition.

The DMNH also welcomes during the month of November, Amandina Anastassiades, a conservator currently working at the McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal. Amandina will be developing a condition survey form for the Museum's shell collection and continuing a condition survey of the wet storage collection of arachnids. She will perform Oddy tests for a selection of display materials and some limited testing for arsenic. While in Denver, Amandina will continue her research of moosehair embroidered birch bark containers for the project she is currently working on at the McCord.

Gina Laurin, Project Conservator for an awarded Institute of Museum and Library Services Conservation Project grant, has successfully completed the conservation condition assessment survey of 1600 objects from the ethnology collections of the DMNH. Objects for survey were selected by the Museum's Curator of Ethnology, Joyce Herold, based on criteria of age, rarity, cultural significance, provenance, collector and appraisal value.

Barbara Johnson, previously from the Upper Midwest Conservation Association in Minneapolis, has been conducting a survey of the Native American collections at the Denver Museum of Natural History. The project includes assessment of current exhibit conditions and the planning for future preservation upgrades. Barbara has recently relocated to the Denver area.

Regional Reporter:
Diane Danielson
Rocky Mountain Reg. Con. Center
2420 South University Blvd.
Denver, CO 80208
303/733-2712
ddaniels@du.edu

ARIZONA

Gloria Giffords spent 10 days in Cuba in an academic research seminar sponsored by the Latin American and Iberian Institute, UNM and the Museum of Santa Fe. As a part of Cuba's aggressive tourism program, a great deal of building restoration and conservation of material culture is currently under way, particularly in la Habana Vieja.

Under the leadership of the government's departments of history and conservation, several 18th-century structures are presently being used as museums and artists' workshops while others are in the restoration process. Gloria found those individuals involved in conservation and the arts and culture there extremely helpful and generous with their time and information. She looks forward to returning.

Nancy Odegaard was been awarded a NAGPRA grant to conduct discussions, develop resource materials and plan a workshop for the American Indian tribes in Arizona on the topic of pesticide residues in repatriated sacred objects. With a University of Arizona Research Grant, she is also developing spot tests for determining the presence of pesticides on artifacts.

Nancy and Scott Carroll taught the spot test course for International Academic Programs in Aberdeen during the summer and the Virginia Conservation Association in Richmond, Virginia in November. She and Marilen Pool delivered a paper on paint stabilization without consolidants at the ICOM-CC meetings in Lyon, France. University of Arizona intern Travis Lane has been awarded an American Indian internship in conservation with the National Museum of the American Indian.

Marilen Pool worked for the Western Archaeological and Conservation Center of the National Park Service over the summer and will continue part-time. With assistance from pre-program interns Audrey Harrison, Sara Creange and Betsy Horton, work focused on the documents from Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and on concha belts from Hubell Trading Post National Historic Site. Since September, Marilen has been hired to work on the NAGPRA Grant project at the Arizona State Museum. She will assist in research concerning the history of pesticide use at the museum and in the development of workshop resource materials.

Gretchen Voeks, National Park Service conservator, recently assisted the Kalaupapa National Historic Site in Hawaii with treatment recommendations for an historic cross from Father Damien's Church. The work is challenging due to difficulties of transporting materials and equipment to this remote site.

Teresa Moreno, former intern at the Arizona State Mus,, began her graduate conservation studies at Durham University.

Regional Reporter:
Nancy Odegaard
Arizona State Museum
Tucson, AZ 85721
520/621-6314
odegaard@u.arizona.edu

HAWAII

Gregory Thomas has recently completed the treatment of the buon fresco "The Relation of Man and Nature in Old Hawaii." The 23 x 104 fresco was painted in 1974 by the artist Jean Charlot. This mural is located in the theatre of Leeward Community College, University of Hawaii in Pearl City. The painting suffered numerous damages in the form of large gouges and scratches and required patching with slaked lime putty/volcanic sand plaster and considerable inpainting. The Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts funded the project.

A survey of the condition of ten buon frescoes by various artists at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, Honolulu was conducted by Art Care. The survey report documented the nontraditional use of a fibrous cellulosic support, canec, which was attached to the walls prior to the application of the intonaco and painting the images.

The conservation treatment of a large 11 x 8 High Renaissance style oil on canvas painting of the Ascension of Christ from the Maria Lanakila Church in Lahaina, Maui, continues in Greg's studio. The painting is tenaciously attached to bed ticking lining and very brittle thin original canvas. The treatment is extremely difficult and complex because of the painting's poor condition.

Greg continues to provide conservation services under the name of Art Care to his private clients. He recently completed the treatment of a French 18th-century portrait of a lady (oil on canvas) and a late 19th-century Hawaiian figurative painting by William Cogswell.

Laurence Pace has continued work on two large 5 x 12 murals painted in 1916 as a collaborative effort by three Hawaii artists, D. Howard Hitchcock, Lionel Walden and William Twigg-Smith. These are two of twelve murals which hung in Honolulu's Liberty Theatre that was demolished years ago. There are six more murals in a private collection which were examined. In the end ten of the twelve will have been treated. Of the remaining two, it is known one has been discarded and one is not accounted for.

Laurence just finished a treatment of an early 19th-century American painting, "Young Boy with a Whip," which belongs to the Honolulu Academy of Arts and will be part of the exhibition "Art Of By And For Children." Larry is also preparing a large number of 19th and 20th-century paintings in the Academy's collection for a travelling exhibition in Japan. Included are paintings by O'Keefe, Modigliani, Leger, Delauney, Eakins and Church. While the paintings travel, their galleries are undergoing extensive remodeling.

Laurence will be conserving a number of oil paintings by Jean Charlot in the collection of St. Francis Medical Center. Numerous other projects are in progress on paintings by artists such as Hitchcock, Cogswell, Walden, Tavernier and Manoukian. Larry has also just completed work on a large painting by Ralph Iwamoto in the collection of The Contemporary Museum.

Laura Gorman has completed treatment of three large outdoor sculptures at the Federal Building in Honolulu. These included a 31 tall stainless steel piece by George Rickey and a 26 long bronze by Peter Voulkos. She is currently consulting on the repainting of "Sky Gate," a 24' tall steel sculpture by Isamu Noguchi. She recently treated a number of pieces of furniture for the new East/West galleries at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. After cleaning two light sculptures by Otto Piene in the legislative chambers of the State Capitol, she will be treating the Capitol's outdoor bronzes of Hawaii's Queen Lili'uokalani and Father Damien.

Regional Reporter:
Laurence Pace
1645 Haku Street
Honolulu, HI 96819-1648
808/833-1999
fax 808/839-0320
lapace@lava.net

NEW MEXICO

The Conservation Department of the Museum of New Mexico has a hired Mina Gregory, previously from LACMA, as the new Associate Conservator. There are also two third year interns: Caroline Finch from the University of London program and Brynn Bender from the Buffalo program. The department has completed a research project on hide paintings which is being written up for publication. During the summer, the Conservation Department took part in a joint project with the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe to assess the preservation needs of the church of the Santuario at Chimayo, New Mexico.

The New Mexico Association of Museums and the Mountain Plains Museum Association held their joint meetings October 13-16 in Santa Fe. The following conservation professionals participated in workshops and presentations: Dale Kronkright, Mariah Sacoman, Helen Alten (Minneapolis), Christine Young (Nashville), and M. Susan Barger.

Betina Raphael taught a conservation practicum for the Museum Studies students from the Institute of American Indian Arts during the fall semester, 1999.

Regional Reporter:
Dr. Susan Barger
3 Moya Lane
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505/466-3709
barger@unm.edu