At the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM), there are subterranean levels which make the journey to the Conservation Lab all the more exciting—and definitely adventurous.
Walking down flights of stairs, winding our way through galleries, then storage areas with who knows what treasures concealed in crates and boxes, we arrive at what looks like a well-organized, well-lit office, better suited to an architectural firm. But the surfaces are flat and contained very large-sized drawers. What hidden treasures await?
Jim DeYoung, senior conservator, has been running the lab long before it even WAS a lab. “Around 1984, the museum was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts lab equipment grant that I applied for. I had been doing some conservation in the space starting with my NEA Fellowship in 1982-’83,” says DeYoung. “During this transition period, it mostly functioned as a matting and framing space. The grant allowed me to reconfigure the space for more advanced treatments of works on paper.”
One of the challenges in understanding the term “conservation” is understanding what it actually means. “Conservation” applies to the overall care and maintenance of an artwork. “Restoration” can actually affect the overall composition and change it, based on adding paint, repairing torn or weakened canvas or dealing with various types of actual damage. And then there’s “stabilization,” which is an interim process to prevent an artwork from any further deterioration.
The number of works in the lab can vary based on the extent of the stabilization and/or restoration and who exactly is doing the work. “Major treatments of works on paper and objects by staff number about 50 per year,” DeYoung explains, “with an addition of five per year, on average, by contract paintings conservators in the museum lab or private lab undertake. Most paintings are stable as we do inspections on every piece that we can.” DeYoung then walks over to those large, oversized drawers and opens the bottom one. That’s when the pleasant shock—and incredible surprise—of discovery and delight set in.
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Shock and Awe
Inches away from an actual Degas! The French painter, Edgar Degas (1834-1917), to be exact. But this is a pastel chalk drawing on tan paper, Conversation at the Racetrack (1882/’85). At first glance it looks just fine. Absolutely astonishing, in fact. The drawing’s focus is on three women leaning over a railing at a racetrack. There is no visual reference to the race; only the women absorbed in conversation, with the central figure being Degas’ friend, the American artist Mary Cassatt. So, why would this magnificent piece of art need fixing?
It turns out that this was the only chalk drawing Degas created that did not have any type of spray adhesive to keep the chalk particles attached to the paper. No one knows why; perhaps he was interrupted? Took a break and forgot where he was in the process? “The flecks are just sitting on the surface,” DeYoung explains. “So, we do everything we can to stabilize the work. This is a non-travel piece. It will never leave here.”
DeYoung now pulls out a much larger piece by Chicago outsider artist Henry Darger (1892-1973). With an extremely long title, the piece itself is just as long (24x73 in.) and in need of major restoration. Labeled as a graphite, carbon transfer and collage on paper, the work was acquired in 2001 and is torn in spots, with missing pieces and worn to the point of tearing where it has been folded and inserted into a large type of scrapbook. To complicate matters, Darger’s works are double sided—and the lab has five of them.
“The conservation is still ongoing as it is even too fragile to put on a photo easel,” DeYoung points out. Like the Degas, these works remain flat, unable to even be placed vertical or upright.
The Conservation Lab currently has four full-time employees and two part-time employees, along with an intern for a three-month period each year, and DeYoung brings in outside conservators two or three times a year, usually to work on paintings. This was evident this past summer when an outside conservator worked on a painting first attributed to English painter John Constable. It actually turned out be the work of French painter Théodore Rousseau.
But, regardless of the surprises laying beneath the layers of paint, conservation keeps the art available for all to see over time. “We want to preserve these works forever,” DeYoung emphasizes, adding, “We want people to be able to see them now, as well as 100 years from now.”
