The Milton Bancroft Art Conservation Project

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts on the web at arts.gov What do you think about when you see a painting hanging on a wall? Why does it appeal to you? Who made it? What was the artist thinking? What makes this painting or this drawing worth seeing 100 years or more after it was created? This is the story of an American artist Milton Herbert Bancroft who started his career during the nation's Gilded Age He studied and worked to develop his talent, struggled to establish a career, made some sacrifices to work at what he loved. This also is the story of preserving Bancroft's work so that we can see it and appreciate it today and well into the future. The University Museum acquired the core of its Milton Bancroft art collection in 1978. It was through the efforts of Dr. Barbara Balsiger, who was the art history professor here at the time, and she also was instrumental in starting the museum a couple of years earlier. She had her own home in Maryland and she heard about the Bancroft estate sale and arranged for the foundation for IUP to purchase art and memorabilia from that sale on behalf of the University. Since 1978 the museum has acquired additional Bancroft art through gifts. These include mural studies for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915 and also drawings he made in the French war zones at the end of World War I. Some of the paintings came to us with varying degrees of damage because they've been stored in a barn. We had water damage, we saw mouse nibbles, there were pigeon streaks across some of them. We didn't know as much about conservation then as we know now and in the time since that acquisition we have found out about new techniques, new products have come on the market. There is much more intensive study and preparation for conservators these days. We just know a lot more about conservation and how to do it properly than we did at that time. We've really only been around as a kind of academic field with serious training programs 40-50 years Prior to that it was very much a craft. It was an apprentice thing. So you went and trained with someone whether it be in paper or paintings or whatever It was really a craft and now it's becoming a little bit more of a science. We understand what the consequences are. Sometimes when paintings are maintained like that and families this will happen in families You got to put stuff somewhere so it gets stashed up and you'll see all sorts of you know problems from wildlife. There'll be spider damage and fly damage and mice the worm damage. They like to chew the they don't like the material so much. They like the adhesives They like the glue in the canvas, but but these paintings didn't really have any of that damage. They had this structural damage just sort of plain or distortion from having been taken off the stretchers taking out of tension and Folded up and just stored any which way. The idea for the Bancroft conservation project began as we were moving our database from an old pin feed system to Past perfect the new database system that we use now We were able to examine every single piece and enter new information into the database And as we did that, of course, it gave us an excellent chance to see that we had a lot of His work that really needed conservation attention This particular collection is a wide variety of things because the artist was working in a lot of different Media, so Milton Bancroft was working out in the field at times so some of the things that he did like pinholes in the top of paper would have been so that he could Potentially pin it to a board or something out in the field when he was working out in the field so some of the damage that we see with objects in collections like this are Not really damaged per se they were created by the artist at the time that he was making the work And so that's not something that we would fix all the time. We may leave those sorts of things to Show the artist's working method, but then there are other issues with these pieces most of which have to do with Matting and framing and that's very common in paper based collections because paper is more fragile it tends to be displayed in frames behind glass with mats and Until maybe the last 20 or so years the materials that were used for matting and framing were not the best materials and People didn't really understand what acidic paper Bad tape different glues those sorts of things were actually doing chemically to the paper itself So a lot of what we would be doing with this particular collection is Undoing bad matting and framing so not something that the artist did but something that was done afterwards a Grant opportunity arose through the National Endowment for the Arts We applied and we were awarded funding for conservation first But then an exhibition of his art and of some of the memorabilia that's in special collections So we actually have his life as an artist with this collection because it's such a vast Comprehensive collection over such a wonderful period of time. Mildred Bancroft loved mixed media So we have all these wonderful wonderful pieces graphite pencil charcoal pastel watercolor Crayon, he loved to do many many drawings with this mixed media and Also paintings wonderful paintings. I wish I could say there's one medium in which he excelled But I think I would frankly have to say all because they're all so actually beautiful in their own way Milton Herbert Bancroft was born on January 1st 1866 in Newton, Massachusetts the middle of three children of William and Martha Varnum Bancroft Not much is known about Milton's childhood But by age 15 his interest directed him to the Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston After a challenging four-year course of study Milton graduated in 1886 Within months. He was teaching art and mechanical drafting at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia He found its Quaker values and intellectual life compatible and thrived as a teacher there He was a teacher as well as an artist. He actually did teach his students and of course he studied as well The Academy the classical style So, of course, he shows this a lot of his drawings is very classical style this accurate proportions As we'll see in the one piece as we see is a man for study of a mural that we have a pencil Drawing which is on a grid that grid is to help Be able to have the accurate balanced proportions in a figure and this idea and concept goes all the way back to ancient And then of course we get it again, it's rediscovered in the Renaissance by such artists as Leonardo da Vinci and his Vitruvian Man Which man is a measure of all things and Milton Bancroft was very good So you'll see that in so many of his wonderful wonderful figure drawings that we'll see here But this grid, of course, Milton Bancroft Did these large huge murals in the San Francisco Exhibition and with those murals that he did Of course, he had to take a small drawing and he had to put that into a large painting So to do this this grid helps an artist be able to do that it helps them to create proportions and balance and take that and then Recalculate those measurements and put them on a larger piece take them from a smaller piece to a larger piece while teaching at Swarthmore Bancroft plunged into Philadelphia's art scene He joined the Sketch Club and freelanced as an illustrator and picture editor He also attended evening classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy was the first museum and first art school established in the United States It was an important training ground for painters and sculptors in Bancroft's time the faculty and courses were firmly set in the academic tradition established by Thomas Eakins who had studied taught and ultimately directed the school until 1886 Thomas Anschutz Thomas Hovenden Bernard Yule and Alexander Stirling Calder were among the instructors while Bancroft studied there fellow students included sculptor Charles Graffley and painters Edward Redfield and Robert Henry as a second year student in 1888 Bancroft won a Topin Prize for a painting in the Academy's annual juried exhibition in 1892 Bancroft left Swarthmore and joined the Academy faculty teaching classes in drawing from casts his fellow teachers Included Anschutz Graffley and Robert Vona Bancroft also served as superintendent of the Academy School He managed student enrollments and scheduled instructors and models for art classes at Swarthmore Bancroft had met a young woman who shared many of his ideals and artistic interest Margaret Moore came from a distinguished Maryland family with deep Quaker roots Margaret Moore and Milton Bancroft married in June 1893 at Margaret's family home Norwood Determined to develop as an artist Bancroft resigned his position at the Pennsylvania Academy He and Margaret sailed for England in September 1894 and proceeded to France in Paris They settled into an apartment at 65 Boulevard Arago in the Montparnasse district their home for the next three and a half years since the 1860s American artists have been drawn to Paris to study at the private art academies and build their reputations exhibiting at the Paris salons Among the most prominent were the Academy's Colerossi Delacluse and Julian Bancroft studied at all three with the French artist George Callot, Gustave Courtois and Paul-Louis Delance, Auguste-Joseph Delacluse and Louis-Auguste Giraudot Outside the Academy studios there were museums to visit and exhibitions to enter at the Societe des Artistes Francais Bancroft sketched in the bustling Paris streets and in its parks and museums When you think about the time That Milton Bancroft lived and you think of this time during which he's doing his art and during war, you know during World War one We're looking, you know 1918 working along this period of time and you know, it hasn't been that long in the late 19th century the French Impressionists Are so popular so you can see that he picks up a lot of these concepts this loose brushstroke This getting the moment this day-to-day life moment of action And you can see this in so many of his drawings you see that he's trying to encompass everything that's going on So you can always see there's that touch of realism still there. It's still there in his figures It's still there in his proportions, but you do see a lot of that Impressionistic Style and he's experimenting with it and he's really you know learning about and he's doing a great job of it And I'm sure being in France didn't hurt either Bancroft traveled to other scenic parts of France such as Carteret on the Normandy coast He also visited galleries and museums in Belgium and Holland where he especially admired the Dutch masters Occasionally Margaret traveled with him the Bancroft's found a refuge in the picturesque village of La Mothe St. Horet southwest of Paris in September 1896 the first of their three children John was born there This painting was actually in the the sort of the next to the last bad condition Because it had been so badly folded and creased you see that there was up in the top areas up here Really in the middle may have been just folded over in the middle at one point A lot of damage down along the bottom. There's this great big crease down along this diagonal crease down along the bottom So he just really just be flapping folded When it was taken off the stretcher So this painting was sort of as far as the color layer goes it was kind of in the poorest condition Because one thing that Bancroft did this is 1905. So it's a little bit earlier. This is kind of a more This is a much more classical. It's almost like an illustration style It's a very thin color layer and especially up in the top portions He literally almost just sort of stains the canvas with his oil medium And one thing that's bad about that is the Natural solvent for oil paint is turpentine, which you probably use The more you what you put that into your paint layer the more you wash out the adhesive capacity of the medium So what happens down the road now? It's probably not going to happen in this painting what happens down the road is the paint doesn't have the adhesive Capacity potential that it should have and you'll start to get some powdering and flaking and dusting over a period of time In May 1898 the Bancroft's returned to the United States by June Bancroft was alone in New York City ready to launch his career Margaret and John remained at Norwood in Maryland that would be their primary residence for years to come New York City in the Gilded Age was surpassing Philadelphia and Boston as a cultural center and Mecca for artists Bancroft struggled to establish himself artistically and financially his first studio near Union Square doubled as living quarters Fees from illustration work for McClure's magazine Harper's Weekly and other popular journals barely covered his own frugal living He could not afford to support his young family in the city At Norwood Margaret struggled to keep up her own spirits and Bancroft's they exchanged frequent letters She wrote of the stress of living poles apart and keeping alive young John's memories of his father Bancroft was frustrated that his dependence on illustration work for income limited his painting time The IUP Special Collections and University Archives collects Organizes preserves protects and provides research access to over 300 archival collections including manuscript group 133 the Milton Bancroft collection The Milton Bancroft collection is housed in 11 archival boxes and organized into seven series that include correspondence Photographs newspaper articles business documents and memorabilia from the 1880s to the 1940s The largest component of this collection is the correspondence Between Milton Bancroft and his wife Margaret and their children John Tom and Anna as well as other family members and close associates Bancroft's correspondence reflects his relationships with friends including architect Henry Bacon and Sculptor Daniel Chester French who collaborated on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC I think between special collections in the University Museum We probably have the most comprehensive collection of Bancroft art and memorabilia in any single institution The Salmagundi Club in New York was an important center where artists could socialize and exhibit their work Bancroft was elected to membership in 1904 in his free time Bancroft visited exhibitions there and in other galleries meeting fellow artists a Commission by the Park Bank of New York for portraits of its directors was an important break Bancroft was earning a reputation for fine portrait painting Although Bancroft exhibited his work in Philadelphia, Chicago and other major cities, New York was his base he entered exhibitions of the National Academy of Design which since 1825 had defined fine art in America in the early 1900s the Academy shared exhibit space with the Architectural League of New York and other artists Associations in that setting Bancroft's paintings gained a wide audience The Architectural League was founded in the 1880s by architects and artists in allied fields The League elected members of professional prominence beyond New York such as Louis Comfort Tiffany Prominent sculptor Daniel Chester French and his frequent collaborator architect Henry Bacon were members French's protégé Sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman was a frequent exhibitor. Although women were not members at that time Bancroft was often commissioned for architectural decoration projects painted murals and Ornamentation were common in public buildings in the homes of the wealthy popular motifs for murals were allegorical scenes with classical subjects. In 1906 Bancroft entered his first Architectural League exhibition and was elected to its membership the following year. In 1908 Bacon, Longman and Bancroft won the League's special prize for the best design by an architect, sculptor and mural painter in Collaboration. Their collaboration in this and later projects set the stage for Bancroft's most visible professional achievement San Francisco 1911. Preparations were beginning for the Grand Panama Pacific International Exposition to celebrate Balboa's discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the opening of the Panama Canal Prominent American architects, painters, sculptors and landscape designers were selected to carry out the ambitious theme for the exposition site Many of these professionals were members of the Architectural League of New York including Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon Bacon, the appointed architectural commissioner for the exposition, also designed the Court of the Four Seasons there Evelyn Longman created a central focal point for the court, the Fountain of Ceres, while other sculptors' works Decorated bays and columns. Bacon selected Bancroft to paint ten murals for the court In addition to literally hundreds of letters and photographs, his archival collection contains select artwork including studies for murals That he painted for the Court of the Four Seasons in the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco In the court's four bays, one for each season of the year, a set of two paintings would illustrate the tasks and the pleasures of the season. Two larger panels located in the court's half dome would portray art crowned by time and man receiving instruction in nature's laws In New York, following the exposition's great success, Bancroft felt changes on several fronts Modernist currents unleashed in the Armory Show of 1913 were making an impact on art circles Demands slackened for portraits and architectural murals Continuing conflict in Europe drew American artists' attention to the plight of France where so many of them had studied Bancroft joined the American Artists Committee of 100 formed in 1914 to raise relief funds for French artist soldiers and their families By 1916, the United States was preparing for possible entry into the war American artists created posters promoting industrial preparedness and home front support. The War Department, the Navy, and the Red Cross also commissioned posters for their recruiting efforts. Bancroft designed several posters for them His archival collection chronicles Milton Bancroft's life and the events that surrounded him, including World War I As the United States entered the war, Milton Bancroft wanted to serve his country by utilizing his artistic talents for the war effort His wartime correspondence with colleagues, government agencies, and military personnel, including his own son, Second Lieutenant John Bancroft show Milton Bancroft's desire to create posters, teach, and serve in Europe. In 1918-1919 he would be an artist with the YMCA detachment based in Paris, France where he documented the World War I in sketches and paintings Early in 1917, Bancroft wrote to the Council of National Defense in Washington I am extremely anxious to place my services at the disposal of the country He applied to several wartime service offices Assignment overseas as a camouflage painter or as an artist in the field with the army was briefly a possibility But his age disqualified him In May 1918, the Bancroft's oldest son, John, enlisted in the army and was sent with a company of engineers to France Milton Bancroft intensified his efforts to serve in some capacity overseas. By autumn, he was working with the American YMCA in France, overseeing the design of relief stations for American soldiers there Bancroft's work took him from supply ports to Paris to the frontline sectors of St. Quentin, Chateau Thierry, Reims, Verdun, and Argonne He also designed posters promoting the YMCA's support of the American soldiers in France. After the armistice, he made sketches of conditions and daily life in the war zones So this next piece by Bancroft is a Poster or it's the original art for a poster that was done for the YMCA again while he was in France During the end of the First World War and you can see that there's some lines here some pencil lines here that were Helping align all of the text whether or not he did the text. I'm not sure but Certainly this could have been photographed as it was and produced as a poster. The border is there All of the text is there. So this would have been reproduced for mass consumption as a poster and Looked pretty much like it does as an original piece of art The YMCA station sometimes served as emergency hospitals for liberated French prisoners of war Bancroft wrote of one such episode You never saw such a ragged army of misery one-armed one-legged one-eyed He went on to describe the efforts of local citizens and his own staff to feed clothe and care for them late in 1919 Milton Bancroft and his son John returned to the United States Bancroft brought back more than 200 drawings from the war zones in France in 1920 40 of them were exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC Several of these are part of the Milton Bancroft collection in the University Museum Like I said the quick brushwork in his a color. She'll see that too because it's about color I mean if anything the impressionistic influence it is about color. It's about bright color. It's about the color at the moment It's the way light reflects off an object Officing that every day-to-day life the motion and it comes, you know Yeah Actually, there's even an influence for them to that goes back to the 17th century Dutch artist when you're kind of getting away from that history painting and you're getting more and more Into that every day-to-day life and what's happening and Milton Bancroft captured that what is happening here in World War one What is going on and he did it, you know So, you know, he's very important even as a historical artist Because he's actually documenting You know many things of World War one his year in the French war zones had left him longing for a quiet life in 1920 Bancroft closed his New York studio and retired with Margaret to Norwood in Maryland 150 years after his birth. We are preserving this artist's remarkable legacy IUP's University Museum in collaboration with IUP Special Collections and the University Archives Will present an exhibition in the University Museum. It features the artwork of Milton Bancroft and his archival collection Framing these in historical context with the world events that impacted Bancroft his family and his associates the exhibition is co-curated by Donna Cash Dollar and Harrison Wick and It showcases some of Bancroft's works that have been professionally conserved That conservation and the exhibition are partially funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts