Museum Case Studies

Painting Restoration of "Les Caves #2"

 

Project: Restore 1976 painting by Robert Motherwell
Client: Ulrich Museum, Wichita, Kansas
Mural size: 12 x 6 feet
Project completed: May 2008

When renowned contemporary artist Robert Motherwell created this work over 40 years ago, he used massive expanses of black, solid pigment paint.  The painting needed some maintenance and reversal of what appeared to be smudges; these likely occurred when something splatterd along the bottom edge of the painting. The painting featured different textures and finishes of layered black paint, and the refractive index ranged from glossy to flat.

We used rapidly evaporating polar solvents to carefully remove the splatters, then tested a range of pure pigments and binders to match the original medium. As is the case for every project, all materials are reversible and use museum-standand methodologies.