consevation
A glimpse into a Conservators studio ;Conservation of The John Benjamin Smith Collection
Preparations are well underway for the new temporary exhibition at Stockport Story Museum which will be entitled ‘Saints and Sinners’. This is an exploration of a curious collection of paintings donated to Stockport in 1879 by John Benjamin Smith. Smith was an MP for Stockport aswell as a founding member of Stockport’s first ever museum. The paintings were acquired whilst he was on a tour of Italy during the first half of the 19th century.The themes of the paintings are predominantly of saints and religious scenes, they are full of iconography and symbolic imagery. The exhibition explores the stories within the paintings; Victorian philanthropy, and follows the history of John Benjamin Smith, Stockports first museum and how the paintings came to be in Stockport’s care . In preparation for the exhibition many of the paintings had to be conserved due to their condition.This post follows on from a previous post entitled ‘Exhibition preparation: wrapping the paintings ready for movement’ and takes a look at the paintings being conserved in the Conservators studio.
After securely wrapping the paintings we transported them to conservator Gillian Walker’s studio, packing them very carefully for transit; we unloaded the large and heavy paintings at her studio. Gillian’s studio is a bright and immaculate space with shelves of curious bottles filled with solutions, tools and coloured pigments. It was great to see her small team working on some of the paintings (that we had previously delivered) whilst we were there.
The paintings that we delivered were in a mix of conditions, some were very dark and dull, others had physical holes right through the canvas. Gillian explained that some would need only surface cleaning to remove layers of dust and dirt, where as others would need further restoration to repair rips and tears in the canvases; she estimated that each painting would take approximately 12hours to complete.
Whilst we were at the studio Curator of the exhibition Bronwen Simpson took the opportunity to record an interview with both Gillian and Lucy discussing directly what is involved within the conservation of paintings and in particular the John Benjamin Smith Collection that they had been working on. It was fascinating to see one of the paintings that we had delivered a few weeks ago, which had previously had quite a large tear in it. Lucy described the process of restoring it, from removing the layers of dirt, revealing the vibrant coloured pigments underneath. When we took this painting in it was very dark and dull and now you can see colours such as burnt amber and rich siennas. To fix the tear she takes good conditioned threads from the edge of the painting, adhered them to existing threads and rewove the tear. When this painting is finished Lucy estimates that it will have taken her 70 hours to complete! It is a painstakingly long process but as Gillian describes a very rewarding one;
‘everyday is enjoyable and every job that we do is enjoyable. The great thing is that you see the painting coming in in a dreadful state and you gradually over a period of time you secure it and improve it and make it safe and acceptable to look at, and enjoyable to look at, so there is a whole process of improvement as well as insuring that the painting is safe for the future.’
These audio interviews will be edited and then available to listen to at an audio post during the exhibition and provide the listener with further behind the scenes glimpse at the journey of the paintings and how the exhibition came together . The Saints and Sinners exhibition runs from 23rd November 2013 – 26th October 2014 at Stockport Story Museum. I will be posting further updates on the progress of the paintings aswell as the exhibition in the near future.
More info: ( http://www.stockport.gov.uk/services/leisureculture/visitstockport/museumsandgalleries/)
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