|
|
August 23rd, 2010
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!  Huell Howser I was in Palm Springs last Friday (It was a 118 degs!) having dinner with an art dealer and collector when, to my surprise, in through the door came Huell Howser, Hollywood Icon and host of the TV series California Gold. How long has that program been on the air!!!? Talking about staying power!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: art conservation, art restoration, California Gold, Globe Lobby, Huell Howser, Hugo Ballin, LA Times, Los Angeles Times, Murals
Posted in Murals, Paintings | 1 Comment »
August 2nd, 2010
This lovely alabaster sculpture is a treasured heirloom from the owner’s mother. It was originally bought in the 1920’s in Florence, Italy and was passed down from mother to daughter. Sadly, due to poor packing and inept storage, the center section broke into several pieces. This greatly distressed the owner, as this heirloom was very precious to her.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: archival, art conservation, art preservation, damage, disaster preparedness, do it your self, earthquake, Family history, Florence, nostalgia, packing, sculpture, Shipping, storage
Posted in Poor Handling | No Comments »
July 31st, 2010
This painting has a great story I’m sure you’ll find interesting, even in its abbreviated form:
Painted in 1903, a Russian artist from St. Petersburg sent this painting to America to be exhibited in 1904 at the St. Louis International Exhibition to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase. An art dealer gathered paintings from his country’s best artists to expose their artwork to American buyers but once the paintings were in the United States complications arose. The paintings were shown but the dealer refused to past the custom’s duties. So, after the expo, the paintings were held in limbo for a number of years until they were auctioned off, by Presidential decree. This painting ended up at the De Young Museum, then the Oakland Museum of Art and then to several high end collectors, until it landed unceremoniously buried in stuff in a warehouse sometime in the 1960’s we assume.
Recently, the painting was unceremoniously designated to be discarded until a sharp-eyed collector saved it from the dumpster. What probably happened was that after a small rip had been repaired poorly, then another, and another… finally, the damage and the dirty surface made it fit for “long term storage” where it was forgotten… until someone started to clear things out.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: art conservation, art restoration, Artwork, damaged art, De Young Museum, Louisiana Purchase, Painting
Posted in Paintings, Poor Handling, Protect and Save Personal Valuable Items in Office and at Home | No Comments »
July 27th, 2010
Consult Professional Conservation Services Before Getting Rid of Art
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: appraisal, Dirty Art, Dumpster diving, Famous Artists, flaking, Inept Conservation, Painting, restoration, Restoration and Conservation, vintage
Posted in Paintings, Poor Handling, Protect and Save Personal Valuable Items in Office and at Home | No Comments »
July 26th, 2010
Real versus Fake?
Distinguishing a genuine work of art from a counterfeit wannabe stands at the foundation of every collector’s turmoil. “Fakes” are not always an effort to deceive. However, most “fakes” are fraudulent. Here are a few different scenarios to consider as a collector:
- An artist’s estate can morally add an artist’s signature to a piece post mortem in an effort to identify the estate and the artist on artwork that was unsigned originally.
- An unscrupulous art dealer can add a fake signature to make the artwork more valuable. Even the signature of an unknown name can make the artwork more valuable than an unsigned painting.
- A “new” painting can be antiqued to look old and more valuable.
- An old painting can be “doctored” so heavily to mask or disguise repairs that it changes the essence of the artwork and makes the artwork no longer “original.”
- Old artwork, now dirty, can be mistaken for something it is not. This can be an honest mistake by a collector or dealer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: appraisal, Archives, Art Collecting, Art dealer, Authentic, Counterfeit, Painting, restoration
Posted in Protect and Save Personal Valuable Items in Office and at Home | No Comments »
July 14th, 2010
 Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! Ellen Lupton, the curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the director of the master’s program in graphic design at the Maryland Institute College of Art recently posted a well written and humorous article in the opinion section of the NY Times about the angst of having inherited stuff from the past. It appears that her need to eliminate clutter trumps her archival gene… something I didn’t expect from a curator.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Antique, Cooper–Hewitt National Design Museum, Ellen Lupton, Family history, Genealogy, Norman Rockwell, photo albums
Posted in Protect and Save Personal Valuable Items in Office and at Home | No Comments »
July 8th, 2010
Recently, my nephew got married to a really great girl. We are thrilled to have her in our family. Their story of how they met, how they romanced each other and how the proposal went was sooo cute and it was all illustrated in a scrapbook next to the sign-in book at the reception. Everyone got a kick out of looking through it. What a priceless piece of family history that was JUST created! I would be heart sick to know that because of moving or because of some other casual forgetfulness that this scrapbook of memories was to be lost… So, here are some tips to protect, preserve and save these treasured memories:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Acid-free paper, Family history, Genealogy, photo albums, scrapbook
Posted in Photographs, Protect and Save Personal Valuable Items in Office and at Home, scrapbook | 3 Comments »
June 21st, 2010
 Damage due to handling, storage, heat and humidity I’ve written before about what it does to a panting to roll it up. But, just to reinforce the issue, here’s another example. But, for the first time, let me make some interesting points:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Artwork, cracking, insurance, rolled up, storage
Posted in Poor Handling | 3 Comments »
June 11th, 2010
This just came in the lab this morning. A very nice portrait of a Japanese American from 1944 in oil. Why it would be trimmed of its edges in such an ugly manner can only be explained by the painting being pulled from its frame, cut unceremoniously off its stretcher bars then rolled up and a hurried departure. Was the owner fleeing a natural disaster? Or maybe it was the social difficulties for Japanese Americans in 1944 when the USA confined American Citizens to concentration camps. In that desperate time, people fled with few possessions, stashed stuff in storage for, hopefully, later retrieval. We have done a lot of work for the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles over the years and they tell a heroic compelling story. (http://www.janm.org).
 Damaged by being rolled up. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: art conservation, art preservation, art restoration, Artwork, cracking paint, Internment, Japanese American, Painting, World War II
Posted in Paintings, Poor Handling | 2 Comments »
June 10th, 2010
We had a painting come into the lab from a CA client that use to be part of an old family estate in NY. The painting was very high quality, but very dirty and it had 16 holes in it. On the back was an old crusty brown label with no writing on it…. or so it seemed!
 No writing on it... or was there? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Infrared, Painting, Technology
Posted in Paintings, Protect and Save Personal Valuable Items in Office and at Home, What can you do at home? | 2 Comments »
|
|
 |
