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Hinge-Worthy: Updating the Hinges on a Mark Bradford Piece

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Hinge-Worthy: Updating the Hinges on a Mark Bradford Piece

Sometimes pieces arrive at The Center in good condition, but have inappropriate framing treatments. We are frequently asked to reframe art, or to provide solutions to address faulty framing. For instance, one piece came to us in great condition, it had simply slipped from its mount inside its frame. The piece was a mixed media work by Mark Bradford, an installation and conceptual artist from Los Angeles who had first experimented artistically in his mother’s hair salon, and now has pieces in museums around the world.

A Bright Future: Reviving a Frederick Douglass Print

A Bright Future: Reviving a Frederick Douglass Print

Frederick Douglass changed the course of history with his powerful writing and moving speeches. An escaped slave, Douglass devoted his life to the abolition movement and even became involved in the movement for women’s rights. Douglass also published his own newsletter called the North Star and wrote numerous autobiographies.

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Lester’s Legacy: A Book of Memories

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Lester’s Legacy: A Book of Memories

The Center has conserved and digitally replicated everything from family albums, all types of journals, archives, letters, and rare or cultural materials that are irreplaceable. This story focuses on how The Center assisted a client with creating two digital and archival scrapbooks that documented the original material from personal memories and events. The custom made digital scrapbooks were then bound in leather with custom designed clam shell boxes for protection and safe handling. This is an example of how The Center continually strives to save, preserve, and protect works - whether a family heirloom or a rare work of art.

Transfixing and Tintorettesque

Transfixing and Tintorettesque

Art has the incredible ability to take hold of you, transfix you, and then transport you into another state of mind. That’s exactly what happens to one of our clients when he gazes at “The Trinity with the Virgin and Two Donors,” a painting attributed by one expert to Marten de Vos, a Flemish history painter and portraitist of the late 16th century.

A Greco-Roman Holiday

A Greco-Roman Holiday

As the weather grows colder here in Chicago, we are constantly dreaming of our next getaway. One classic that captures our wanderlust is Audrey Hepburn’s “Roman Holiday.” Unfortunately, Rome is a little far, but luckily, we had the opportunity this month to watch the treatment of a Greco-Roman painting instead.

The Glessner House Piece

The Glessner House Piece

Last month we had the pleasure of hosting a private tour of our conservation laboratory and warehouse in collaboration with the Glessner House Museum. The museum previously brought us a ceramic piece from their collection that had shattered. When the tour came through in the first week of the month, the group was fortunately able to see the piece mid-treatment.

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Conserving the Knight

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Conserving the Knight

Over these last few months, we’ve spent a lot of quality time in our Conservation Lab with a new friend and have made a lot of great memories. We are talking, of course, about our friend Carlos, a suit of armor and mannequin that we had the joy of conserving. 

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Conservation-Grade Framing and Display: A Word from the Pros

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Conservation-Grade Framing and Display: A Word from the Pros

Framing and displaying an artwork properly can help draw attention to a work, enhance its visual appeal, and keep it safe. Poorly framing or displaying a work of art, on the other hand, can lead to discoloration, fading, acid burn, and other severe and unnecessary damage.

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Our Furniture Department: A Retrospective

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Our Furniture Department: A Retrospective

Over the years, the Furniture Department of The Conservation Center has helped conserve many works of antique and fine furniture, both from museums and private clients. So this month, as the weather chills and we all get cozy in our big comfortable chairs, we wanted to highlight them, their work, and what we think are their best treatments.

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À la Modigliani: Portrait of Lunia Czechowska

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À la Modigliani: Portrait of Lunia Czechowska

Amadeo Modigliani was an Italian painter who lived and worked during La Belle Époque. Like many other artists during this period, he resided in Paris where he created some of his most famous sculptures, drawings, and paintings. Although Modigliani was prolific and created hundreds of pieces, he was destitute for most of his tragically short life. The artist is well-known for his portraits, which depict faces influenced by the Baule masks and figures from the Ivory Coast. His distinctive style is characterized by long necks and faces, and by his signature small, hazy eyes. We recently encountered one of his drawings in need of minor treatment and cleaning.

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Shattered in Shipment: Saving a Work from Broken Glass

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Shattered in Shipment: Saving a Work from Broken Glass

At The Conservation Center, we are acutely aware that accidents happen, so that is why we offer our services at EXPO Chicago every year.  Our team of art handlers and conservators prepare annually to assist in every way possible as hundreds of pieces of art are installed in Navy Pier over two short days.  This year we assisted with a piece that suffered damage from international shipment.  Somewhere along the way, the glass shattered and the paper piece underneath was in need of a quick rescue.

Patching up a Paschke Painting

Patching up a Paschke Painting

Commonly referred to as “Mr. Chicago” by his friends, Ed Paschke is one of the Windy City’s most celebrated artists. Born and raised in Chicago, Paschke earned his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1961, and after traveling to Mexico, Europe, and New York, returned to SAIC for his MFA in 1970. Some of Paschke’s earliest artistic influences were the animations of Walt Disney, as well as the colorful caricatures the artist’s father drew on the letters he sent home from Europe during WWII.

The Rediscovery and Restoration of a Forgotten Lester W. Bentley Mural

The Rediscovery and Restoration of a Forgotten Lester W. Bentley Mural

Here at the Center, the conservation of murals is something in which we take great pride. In the early 1990s, our CEO Heather Becker co-founded a large-scale mural preservation project which restored a selection of Progressive and WPA-Era Murals in Chicago Public Schools. Since the completion of the project, The Center has continued to treat murals of various materials, time periods, subjects, and sizes.

For this reason, we were especially excited when the Ruth St. John and John Dunham West Foundation contacted us about restoring a mural painted by Lester W. Bentley located on the West Foundation’s property.

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Restoring a Beautiful Bacchanale

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Restoring a Beautiful Bacchanale

As a Chicago-based company, it’s always a treat when pieces come to us with a bit of local art history. Recently, we had the opportunity to restore a large painting by James Allen St. John, a Chicago artist who is most commonly known for his illustrations of the popular Edgar Rice Burroughs "Tarzan" series.

Flipping Through Pages of History: Restoring a Family Heirloom

Flipping Through Pages of History: Restoring a Family Heirloom

This Bible first entered our client's family in 1889, and had been passed down to her through her mother's side of the family, who had emigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia. Though she and her mother hadn’t used the Bible in quite some time, it was a treasured family heirloom that our client was eager to see repaired. She entrusted Bill Paulson, owner of the Apple Frame Studio in Mundelein, Illinois, to see to that the Bible be restored to its former condition. Bill, who has frequently worked with The Center on behalf of his clients, knew this was a job for our conservators.

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Timeless Techniques: Treating a Gilded Mirror

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Timeless Techniques: Treating a Gilded Mirror

The Center's Gilding Department specializes in the preservation of frames and objects with gold, silver, and metal leaf applied to the surface. A wonderful example of the type of projects our Gilding Conservators frequently undertake recently came to us in the form of a mirror in need of conservation.

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A Cabinet of Curiosities: Framing a Robert Rauschenberg

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A Cabinet of Curiosities: Framing a Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg is frequently remembered for his series of work created in the 1950s and 1960s that combined aspects of both painting and sculpture. Rauschenberg himself called them "Combines", a term he invented to describe a work that is neither a sculpture nor a painting, but rather a hybrid of the two. The artist was always one to experiment and fuse, often creating something entirely new from two entirely different substances.

Henri Matisse's Textiles: Conserving a Mimosa Rug

Henri Matisse's Textiles: Conserving a Mimosa Rug

Known mainly for his colorful paintings and abstracted paper cutouts, Henri Matisse is a name familiar to art enthusiasts and casual museum-goers alike. Perhaps not as well-known is Matisse’s deep and life-long connection to textiles and fabrics. When The Center recently encountered an example of one of the artist's textile designs, we knew there must be a story behind it. 

An Arctic Journey: Conserving a Pair of North Pole Novels

An Arctic Journey: Conserving a Pair of North Pole Novels

As the summer season is in full swing and many of us are enjoying long weekends by the lake, one of The Center’s client is taking his travels in a different direction. William Hartel, longtime client of The Center and an avid collector or rare books, recently contacted our conservators regarding the conservation of several books he purchased as travel companions on his summer journey to the North Pole.

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Spectral Liberation: Repairing a Large Public Sculpture

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Spectral Liberation: Repairing a Large Public Sculpture

With many different departments working together here at The Conservation Center, we understand the value of teamwork. On certain occasions, this means working hand in hand with other companies and specialists to develop the correct treatment approach for a unique piece. When we received a call regarding a large public sculpture at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden that had been struck by a car, we knew right away that engaging some of our trusted vendors to assist our team with the repairs may be necessary.

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