[CPProt.net] Restorers work to conserve art battered by Katrina

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Restorers work to conserve art battered by Katrina
by Sharon Cohen 
Indiana Daily Student

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Published Tuesday, October 4, 2005

CHICAGO -- Helen Conklin whisks a cotton swab delicately across a 19th
century painting of silvery fish set in deep earth tones. She's looking for,
of all things, mud on the canvas -- and sure enough, there it is.

She peers at another painting through a microscope, focusing on a cardinal's
rich crimson robes that have faded to a sickly pink. That's the mark of
floodwaters.

These works and many others -- paintings and frames crusted with mold and
fungus, bits of debris, even a few feathers -- are here to be repaired and
revived by art conservationists participating in their own version of
hurricane recovery.

They're part of The Chicago Conservation Center, a team of experts working
in a sprawling seventh-floor studio more than 800 miles from New Orleans and
the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. They have much to do: A giant
multicolored abstract is splattered with grime, an autumn landscape is
flaking, canvases are sagging.

In an epic disaster where there were many harrowing chronicles of life and
death, these treasures tell a different tale of survival.

"Art is a narrative and tells a lot of personal stories," says Heather
Becker, CEO of the center. "If we don't try to save the history of our
culture, of our communities, we lose that forever."

The conservation work in Chicago is among many public and private efforts to
salvage tens of millions of dollars' worth of cultural gems damaged in
hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works, based
in Washington, D.C., is sending conservators to the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast
to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency and cultural associations
determine how to best repair waterlogged historic documents, sodden
furniture and artwork. It also will help private citizens with damaged
collections and heirlooms.

Even before the floodwaters buried New Orleans, efforts were under way to
preserve art treasures. Workers at the New Orleans Museum of Art secured
sculptures and moved some paintings before the storm, then kept vigil inside
in the chaotic days when looters rampaged through the streets.

The museum's insurer, AXA Art Insurance Corp., dispatched private security
guards to protect the building as well as clients who had galleries or
private collections in the French Quarter or other areas.

The museum, which has 40,000 pieces in a collection estimated to be worth
about $250 million, escaped relatively unscathed. A giant sculpture in the
garden needs repairs. Three other objects inside had water damage. The
building is now haven to nearly 1,000 works that private collectors,
galleries and other museums are storing there temporarily.

"If there are angels in the heavens above, the museum's angels were
archangels," says Jacqueline Sullivan, the museum's deputy director. "The
storage was 12 feet underground. I can't imagine why it did not flood."

But others weren't as lucky.

AXA estimates that Katrina-related losses to its private clients --
including collectors, corporations and galleries -- could be as high as $30
million, according to Christiane Fischer, the corporation's chief executive
officer.

In recent weeks, hundreds of damaged pieces -- including paintings by
well-known artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, William Merritt Chase and
Alfred Bierstadt -- have arrived at The Chicago Conservation Center in
climate-controlled trucks.

They were collected by intrepid staffers who secured the art in what they
call "rescue and recovery missions."

Donning impermeable Tyvek suits with hoods, gloves, boots and respirators
and guided by flashlights, the workers often made their way through dark,
flood-scarred homes in New Orleans.

"It's like an oven," says Walter Wilson, the center's director of disaster
response. "You're doing an excruciatingly difficult job when it's 100
degrees." 



"Restorers work to conserve art battered by Katrina"
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=31513