Baumgartner Restoration

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. While many of the pieces that arrive at the studio and end up here on video are catastrophic failures, disasters, hot messes, things that would make you scream in the middle of the night, not all paintings are. In fact, most of the works that we take on in the studio are not horrible, terrible, no good, very bad projects. They're lovely paintings that just need a little bit of attention. And such was the case with this rather fetching portrait of a young woman. There were some issues structurally, a tear, some nicks, some dents, some planar distortions, as we say, and some crude attempts at conserving them and repairing them. But the fact that we could see these repairs meant that they are not all that good. On the back, we can see more of that old work, some patches, but none of this work is terribly complicated. We don't have to move heaven and earth to affect a positive change. In fact, this is kind of day-to-day for us. And this is a project that really only needs tender, loving care. I mentioned that most of the projects we take on aren't disasters. They're much like this painting, sound, but needing a little bit of tender, loving care, just like your old website. That's okay, but could be better with some care. And with Squarespace, taking care has never been easier. With thousands of beautifully designed templates that work everywhere and anywhere, Squarespace will have you looking good. And with their new Fluid Design technology, you can drag and drop elements around your website to change things up or customize it as you see fit without the need of any code. But that doesn't mean it's just a pretty website. Under the hood is massive technology, from search engine optimization, e-commerce solutions, mailing lists, online scheduling, social media integration, shipping solutions, and more. Pretty much everything you need to run a successful business. So head over to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash Baumgartner to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. The first thing that I need to do is separate this painting from its support. And it's plausible that I could do all of this work while keeping this painting on the support, and it would be good, the results would be great. But it would also potentially leave areas unaddressed, like this tacking edge and the crease, which inevitably over time has become weakened and could fail in the future. So while I certainly could leave the painting on the support, it's wiser and smarter to take it off and do it the right way. We don't want to spend a lot of time conserving this painting only to have the tacking edge fail when we try to key it out or at a later date. So with all of those tacks removed, I can pull off the stretcher from the painting. And it's much easier to do this with the painting face down than it is to try to lift the canvas, brittle and all, off of the support. Now, this support is pretty dirty and it'll have to be cleaned later on, but for now, my attention is focused on this painting. You can see just how much dust and dirt and debris has settled in between the stretcher bar and the canvas along the bottom edge. Nobody put this here, this just accumulated over many, many years and generations of sitting on the wall, sitting in storage, in a garage, in a basement, and so on and so forth. Paintings get dirty. It's amazing how much dirt we find on paintings, but that's the truth. With a brand new scalpel blade, I will start to remove these patches. And I'm going to peel up this canvas and see if I can just peel it off. Anytime I can do that as opposed to using the scalpel to scrape is always better. It's much more efficient and it has less risk of both the canvas and me getting a cut and needing bridging in any event. You can see that by pulling this canvas off, the adhesive releases. It doesn't hold onto this new little patch canvas. It stays put on the original, which is kind of a bummer. It would be nice if the adhesive would go with the patch and leave the original canvas free and clear, but never once has that happened. So take that for what it is. The same will go for the larger patch. Simply peeling it back and being careful not to damage, crinkle, or wrinkle the original canvas, we can then begin removing the adhesive from this original canvas. And here, after testing it, I've chosen to use a solvent gel that I mix in the studio. And this solvent gel is composed of, oh, four or so solvents that have been turned into a gel. And the gel enables me to paint it onto the adhesive where it will stay, it won't run, and it can sit and do its work longer. Once it's had enough time to start softening up this adhesive, I can then use the scalpel to slice it off. And unfortunately, it will take a couple of passes to remove all of this adhesive from the original canvas. Now, I say adhesive, but I actually don't really know what this is. It could be adhesive, it could be some sort of paint, it could be something found at a home center. In any event, it needs to go. And so one pass with the gel, then some scraping with the scalpel, then more gel, then more scalpel, rinse, repeat, so on and so forth, until we have a canvas that is free and clear. And look at that, it doesn't look so bad. There's a little bit of discoloration, but we really can't do anything about that. That happens because of oxidation and time, and well, we can't reverse time. The same will go for the larger area. I'll make some passes with the gel, then the scalpel, then the gel and the scalpel, so on and so forth, until I've gotten all of this residue off. Now, because this is the back of the canvas, we don't have to worry too much about the gel being overly aggressive. The canvas will stop it from penetrating through and to the face of the painting, but this gel can be very aggressive, and so we always have to take care and test before we use it. With all of that stuff removed, I'll make one final pass with the brush to get all of the dust and debris off of the back of the canvas, and then transfer the whole thing to the small hot table, which only uses 0.605 chickawatts. The treatment on the hot table is going to do a couple of things, but most importantly, it's going to remove all of those little dents and dings and waves and ripples and things that conservators call planar distortions. It's a fancy name, but it's all the same. By introducing a little bit of heat, a little bit of pressure, and using the ambient moisture that's in the canvas, we can encourage this canvas flat. Once the painting's been brought up to temperature, I can turn the heat off, then let it cool, and then once it's cool, I can come back and remove it from this little mylar envelope and then press it under weight. Even though we didn't add any moisture to this canvas, any of the free moisture that was either in the air or in this canvas, if not pressed under weights with a piece of felt, then it will cause the canvas to distort, and all the work we've done will have to be redone. After letting it sit for a day or two, I'll come back and remove this painting from the weights, and you can see that it's nice and flat. There's no distortions, which is precisely what we wanted. So now it's time to take this painting to the front of the studio and continue work on, well, the front. I've made some tests on this painting. I always do that when a painting comes in before I write the proposal to the client detailing the scope of work, and my notes inform me on what approaches I will need to clean this painting, and I'm starting off with a neutral organic soap, and this is a neutral pH organic soap that we mix here in the studio, and we use it to remove the accumulated surface grime, and you can see here that while there isn't a ton of grime, there's enough. If we don't remove this grime, the solvents that I may use to remove the varnish will have a harder time accessing that varnish layer and softening it and dissolving it, and it's just not as efficient, and also it could cause me or whoever is working on this painting to use an ever more aggressive or stronger or effective solvent, and that puts the painting at risk. So by cleaning a painting in two stages, we can ensure that we remove the surface grime with the appropriate soaps, and then the solvents will take care of the varnish. With all of that old grime removed, it is now, of course, time to turn to removing that varnish layer. Now, we know this painting was conserved because there were patches on the back, so this is not an original varnish, and when I clean it, it's surprising that it's so red. Normally, we're used to seeing very yellowed varnishes or very brown, even sometimes very gray varnishes, but this is very red, which leads me to believe that either this is not your standard Damar varnish or it's something that's been tinted, maybe to give the painting a warm cast. In any event, it has to go, and so working in small areas with my swab, I will begin lifting off all of this varnish, and you can see right away the color change and the sheen change. Now, the areas where I've cleaned the painting look a little bit washed out because they don't have a varnish layer saturating up their paint, but they will saturate up when I do apply the final varnish, but mine will be clear and won't be tinted. And so as I go along and clean off all of this kind of reddish-orangish varnish, which, as I spend more time with it, I'm starting to believe that it might, in fact, be shellac instead of a Damar varnish because there are shellacs that have this very orange tone and tint to them, and varnishes, well, I guess you could apply a tinted varnish to it, but there's really no reason unless the client is absolutely insistent that they want their new painting to look old. But usually, a long conversation with the client will get them to believe that having the painting look like the artist intended is a better way than trying to recreate some patina that they think belongs on a painting. You see, paintings don't have patina. Furniture, objects, they have patina. Artworks which were created by an individual with a very specific image in mind just have dirty old varnish on them. And so we want to remove that dirty old varnish so that we can reveal what the artist truly wanted. I've always said that if the artist wanted this painting to have a more orange cast to it, they would have painted it in a more orange cast. And as we come to the final cleaning of the eyes, you can see the change in her skin tone, where the varnish has been removed and where it hasn't. And even though the old varnish was warm, this looks better. Now, when it comes to the overpaint on that big tear, I'm going to be using a different gel, this one more tailored to removing old oil paint than the one I used on the back. And just like on the back, I'll apply it, let it sit, and then lift it off. Once I've done that, I can come back with my scalpel and start removing some of this fill-in material, which I think is the same as what was used on the back. So I don't think it's an adhesive, but maybe some sort of synthetic putty or something. In any event, a couple of passes later, we've got it all removed, and now I can start dealing with the consequences of this tear. And because the losses are so small, I'm going to harvest a little piece of the tacking edge that's already separated and use that to create the inlay. This is the identical canvas, the same weight, the same weave. It's literally a skin graft from elsewhere, and it's not going to harm the painting. That tacking edge is perfectly fine. But what it will do is make sure that original material is used here to fill this little void. And that gives us a better chance of success in ensuring that it's going to be the same weight weave, the same dimension, and it's going to respond the same, just like the rest of the canvas. So once I've traced out the tiny little inlay, I will cut it out. I'm not going to use my laser for this because it's just so small and so much faster to do these two little inlays by hand. And also the laser, it's great, but it can burn things when they're super, super tiny. So this is sometimes just easier. I'll do the same thing for the other hole. And then once I'm done, I'll have two little inlays that fit perfectly into those areas of missing canvas. And then it's time to think about repairing that canvas. And for that, I'm going to be using a technique called bridging. And we've seen this before. It's a lighter than patches approach to stabilizing torn canvas. And it relies upon little strands of Belgian linen, which is incredibly strong, laid down perpendicularly over the tear. And these are much like butterfly sutures. They're not sewn into the canvas like stitches. They sit on the back and they hold it flat. And what we're really trying to do is make sure that this tear doesn't open up or distort in the future. It's not going to run. It's not under extreme tension. And we don't have to worry about it being load-bearing. This is a painting after all. But we do want to make sure that in humidity changes and temperature changes, as the climate changes, that it doesn't open up or tent up or become a planar distortion. So after laying down the bridging and pressing it, I can come back, remove the weights and see that it's nice and flat. And then it's time for the strip lining. And this is necessary because while we do have a tacking edge, it's not very strong. And I don't want to take the chance that it tears or fails in the future, particularly given the amount of work that we're going to be doing on this painting. So I will bond a piece of Belgian linen down to the edges of this original painting using a thermoplastic film adhesive. I'll iron on the adhesive, peel off the release, set the Belgian linen strip lining onto the adhesive, and then use an iron to melt the adhesive onto the canvas and the strip lining canvas. And this adhesive sits on the surface. So if it ever needs to be removed, heat or a mild solvent can be used to soften it up. It doesn't penetrate into the canvas. So there's very little residue whenever it needs to be removed. I'll continue doing this on all four sides, making sure that there's a really good, really strong bond. I'll tidy up and clean up everything. And then when I'm done, I can flip the painting over and fill it in. I like to do this whenever I can on the table while the painting is flat because, well, there's a flat surface behind this tear. And it means that if I push to try to embed some of this putty into the losses, it's not going to distort or damage the original painting. And you see here, I can push pretty hard and the table underneath supports the canvas. Once I've applied the fill-in and let it dry, I can come back and, yep, I'm using saliva because it's readily available, it's a little bit more viscous, and it does the job pretty well to remove all of the excess. I just want that fill-in where the losses are, not over the whole area, and I don't want to feather in my retouching. So I'll remove all that residue and we'll have a nice, clean, flat surface with minimal fill-in. I'll do the same for all of the other areas, big and small, and then it's time to marry the stretcher and the painting. But as I'm looking at the support, I realize that when I put this support aside to take care of later, well, I never did. I assumed that the elves would take care of it. And there are areas where when the painting was previously removed or when the stretcher was used for another painting, the heads of the tacks popped off, but the shafts stayed in the wood. And so I'm gonna remove them because that's the right thing to do, and everybody else who handled this did it wrong. Yep, that's right. Leaving old nails embedded into a stretcher is just wrong. Take them out, it's not that hard. Once those are removed, I'll square up the support, making sure that it doesn't move by putting in some nails in those joints. And then I'll fit the painting onto that support, make sure that it is squared up and positioned appropriately. And then I can stretch this painting using steel tacks, much like the ones that were originally used. Now, we don't reuse tacks in this studio because they're old and rusty and compromised. And I have found that even if they're in okay condition visually, they often break when we're trying to hammer them in, or they go in sideways, or the heads pop off, and it's just not worth it. Not to mention, the tacks aren't inherently part of the artist's vision. They are a means to an end. Now, there are artists who have used the tacks as part of their artistic expression, and in those cases, we would treat those differently and try to preserve them as best we could, replacing only those that were damaged and not able to provide adequate support or meet their expectations of the artist. But like I said, that's few and far in between. Most artists are concerned with what's on the plane, not the stretcher, not the canvas, and certainly not the tacks. I can remove all of those nails that I put in the corners to keep this stretcher square and from opening up or distorting. And then I can start cutting off the excess canvas and preparing it for cleanup on the back. I'll use some lighter weight tacks here because we just don't need the heavier weight tacks, and I'll fold the canvas over, tuck it under, and then tack it with those lighter weight tacks. This easily could be cut off. This part of the canvas serves really no purpose anymore. We've used it to pull the canvas taut, and so it could be discarded, but I think it looks nice. And, well, I think it looks nice. End of story. Period. Moving on. It's time to now key the stretcher out. These keys will expand the stretcher just a little bit. You can see how little, but that little bit adds enough tension to take up any slack in the canvas and keep the canvas taut, which is important because a taut canvas has much less chance of flaking and much less chance of developing ripples or planar distortions. A little bit of fishing line and another tack will hold these keys in place and make sure they don't get lost or fall in between the stretcher and the canvas and create a bump. With all of the structural work complete, now we can turn all of our attention to the image. But before I do any retouching, I'm going to apply a layer of synthetic resin. And this is something that's really critically important. This painting looks washed out and dried out. And if I were to retouch according to these washed out and dried out colors, when I applied the final varnish, the painting would saturate up, much like it's doing now with this first layer of synthetic resin. And everything that I matched to that dry, washed out color would not match anymore. So this is a way that I can see what the painting will look like when it's varnished, enabling me to retouch more accurately. And this layer helps me fill in tiny little voids that the fill-in material didn't catch or that I didn't see that are just maybe cracks in the painting. And it also provides a nice surface for the final varnish. When it comes to retouching, we don't use oil paint. We use synthetic paints designed for conservation. And this is ultra fine, very high quality pigment suspended in a synthetic resin, much like the one that I just applied to the surface of the painting. And what this enables us to do is apply a paint that will not be permanent. Because this is a resin and not an oil, it won't oxidize or cross-link like oil would and become permanent. So in the future, if this retouching ever needs to be removed for whatever reason, a solvent can be used to soften up that resin and then this paint will come off. In addition, this paint is designed to fluoresce. So under ultraviolet light, under a black light, you can see the retouching really clearly. And this is to keep conservators honest and so that everybody knows what work they've done. Sometimes it's really hard to spot retouching. And then you shine a black light on it and you can see it very, very clearly. That's by design. Nobody in the conservation world is trying to hide their work. We just don't want it to be seen unless it's to be seen. Anyhow, an area like this, which is mostly one color, is actually not. Every time I go back to my palette, I'm slightly changing the color, making it warmer, making it cooler, making it lighter, making it darker, shifting it ever so slightly. Because the assemblage of little dots of different colors will allow the eye to see this as one unified color. Now for this area, which is a little bit easier because it's discrete and distinct colors, the retouching is no more easy or more difficult. It's just kind of different. I have to make sure that I'm retouching this according to what I see and not what I want to see. So I can't make anything better. I can't tighten up some of these brush strokes. I just have to get rid of the damage, removing it dot by dot until when I step back, it's all invisible. And after all of that work, we are now at the final stage, the application of the final varnish. And here I've chosen to spray the varnish on because, well, I want to. Sometimes I can brush it, sometimes I can spray it. It really just depends on the painting, the varnish, what effect I'm looking to achieve, and what I think is gonna work really well on this painting. So I've chosen to spray this one. One quick application of varnish tells me that this one is almost done, but I'm gonna apply another layer of varnish, this time applying it from about a foot off the surface as opposed to six inches or so. And this just gives a slightly different effect. And that's all it's gonna take is two light passes of varnish, and then we're done. When the painting came in, it was not a train wreck. It was not a disaster, it was not a hot mess or a fail. It was fine. It needed to be cleaned, had some mediocre retouching and some patches that weren't great, but nothing was fundamentally catastrophic about it. Really, all it needed was some TLC. And by getting rid of all of those bands in the background, getting rid of all of those little dents and nicks and dings, all the little scratches, and of course, that huge tear, well, the painting has come together. Cleaning off that very orange, reddish varnish layer has revealed a much softer, much more delicate palette. And seeing some of these colors now finally revealed without the presence of damage, well, it just feels more alive. And really, that's what we're going for. We're not looking to radically change this painting to make it look like something it's not. In fact, we want it to look like itself. And we do that by getting rid of all of the things that are standing in the way. On the back, we can see the lighter footprint. In fact, we're still able to read some of the inscription that was written on the back. Even though it may not be terribly important, we can still save it. She was always pretty. This painting was not a lost cause, but it did need attention. It needed somebody to come in and remove the bad work and return it to a state of glory. Really, all she needed was some tender, loving care.