The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
The Center is proud to have treated objects from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary! For more stories about Lincoln, you can explore their website or follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Once the museum reopens, they’ll be able to welcome their five millionth visitor!
Kerry James Marshall's "Ipso Facto"
In 2016, The Center had the pleasure of working on a personal piece for Kerry James Marshall titled Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness and we were very honored when the artist gave us the opportunity to work on another piece from his personal collection. “Ipso Facto” is a painting executed on two plywood panels joined together with batons and screws. The diptych is primed and painted with what appears to be moderately applied acrylic. Both panels depict a figure’s rear. The left panel is painted in white, with various colors playfully peeking through the brush strokes, and the other is painted in black surrounded by small white flowers with intimate red and green details. The piece is unvarnished and while unsigned, the painting is characteristic of Marshall’s work.
Treating a Tony Tasset Sculpture
Tony Tasset, though born and raised in Cincinnati, has developed deep roots in Chicago and is a recognized artist in the Chicago art world. After Tasset moved to Chicago to earn his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1986, he has been actively producing art for the city to enjoy. Chicago residents and tourists alike might remember some of his public sculptures, such as the giant, 30’ tall eyeball sculpture in the Loop, the colorful storage-container sculpture from Grant Park that was transferred to the University of Illinois at Chicago campus where the artist now teaches, or the giant sculpture of a deer on the city’s newly-renovated Riverwalk showcased just last year.
"Mess is Less": Roger Brown's Unique Multimedia Piece
Though Roger Brown was born in Alabama and split his time between homes in Chicago, Michigan, and California, the Windy City always held a special place in his heart. Brown moved to Chicago in 1962 to attend the American Academy of Art, where he completed a commercial design program. Brown then enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received his BFA in 1968 and MFA in 1970. During this time, Brown and his colleagues (many of whom would become part of the group known as the Chicago Imagists) began to nurture an appreciation for self-taught artists, seeing them not as “outsider” artists, but as worthy of respect and inclusion into the mainstream art world. This, coupled with his travels throughout the United States, Africa, Europe, and Russia, had a profound influence on Brown’s art. Though his works are often bright and simple in composition, the artist’s practice frequently presents a darkly satirical view of contemporary life and American culture.
Charles White: A Retrospective
Charles White, born and educated in Chicago, was one of the preeminent artists to emerge during the city’s Black Renaissance of the 1930’s and 1940’s. This year, White’s hometown is recognizing his contribution to the portrayal of African American culture and history with a retrospective of the artist’s paintings, drawings, and prints at the Art Institute of Chicago. After being on display in Chicago from now until September, the exhibition will travel on to New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Los Angeles’ County Museum of Art. Given the current recognition White is receiving locally, we were honored to also find ourselves interacting with the artist’s powerful work at the same time it was on display at the Art Institute.
Time Capsule Reveal at Rush University Medical Center
The Conservation Center recently worked with Rush University Medical Center's archivist Nathalie Wheaton to unveil the contents of several time capsules recovered on Rush's campus during an excavation in August.
The time capsules dated back more than a century, and were recovered from the cornerstones of Presbyterian Hospital's Daniel A. Jones Memorial Building, Rush Medical College's Senn Hall, and Rawson Laboratory. Materials inside the capsules ranged from the 1800s to 1924, and The Center worked with Rush to remove and document the contents inside two of the three recovered capsules.
Tea for Two Thousand
Whether massive in size or sensitive in material, many pieces that come to The Conservation Center present unique challenges that our conservators are always eager to take on. Most recently, this challenge came to us in the form of a giant teapot from the Springfield Art Association.
A Screen Sneak-Peak!
Good for the Sol: Conserving a LeWitt Sculpture
The Center’s conservators have become familiar with Lewitt’s work after conserving dozens of paintings, works on paper, and sculptural works by the artist. Our most recent interaction with the artist’s work was the treatment of his piece, “1 2 3 4 5 (Vertical),” a painted aluminum sculpture with a steel base.
The Delight of a Dubuffet
Seascape Escape
This sunny coastal scene was painted by Michalis Economou, a Greek artist who first learned painting techniques under the tutelage of Konstantinos Volanakis, also known as the “father of Greek seascape painting.” Although living in Paris for nearly 5 years, Economou’s oeuvre consists mainly of serene, rustic landscapes.
Truisms
A friend and long-time supporter of The Center recently brought in a piece to update its display. The artwork, which is composed of many individual artworks— plaques with various texts by Jenny Holzer— was to be rearranged and given new framing materials. The result is a work that is more cohesive and visually pleasing.
Great (Artist) Aunt Margaret
Many of us have things passed down from our family, maybe stuffed in boxes in the attic or basement, that are treasures to us. These treasures, though maybe not valuable in the eyes of the public (or art market), are priceless to us. “Everybody thinks their Great Aunt Margaret was a great artist,” said one of our clients. Yet sometimes, as that same client found out, it turns out to be true.
Brightening a Blanke Painting: Marie Blanke, Chicago Artist
A painting by early twentieth-century Chicago artist Marie Blanke was significantly brightened after a good cleaning and a fresh coat of varnish. The original canvas, which was deformed and brittle from age, was flattened with a combination of heat, suction, humidity, and weight techniques, and then strengthened by being lined to a prepared canvas. The painting was put back into its original frame, the miters of which were stabilized.
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
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.
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
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
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.
