Keeping works on paper

Press, 7 March 1984, Page 15

Keeping works on paper

To find the paper conservator at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery you have to go down to the basement of the building. Lyndsay Knowles has her conservation laboratory beneath the main exhibition areas of the gallery. There new works to the gallery’s collection are treated as they are bought or given, to preserve them. Works already in the collection are also being worked on to stabilise them to prevent any further deterioration. Ms Knowles says there is a great deal of work to be done. Many of the works on paper in the collection have been glued to cardboard at some time in the past. The acids from the poor quality card have been absorbed by the paper, which has begun to deteriorate.

Much time is spent removing the cardboard and glue and any tape which may have been used, washing, cleaning and deacidifying the paper, repairing any tears and mounting the work on card of archival quality. A buffer to neutralise any subsequent acidity may also be added. This process gives . the best chance of preserving the work. Works are now stored in solander boxes — flat wooden boxes that can hold 25 works on paper matted to a standard size. The worst enemies of paper are strong light, high temperatures and high humidity. Ms Knowles regularly checks these factors in the gallery’s exhibition rooms.

The internationallyaccepted environmental conditions are 20deg. C, relative humidity of 55 per cent with light levels set at 50 lux for works on paper and 150 lux for oil paintings.

“I have over-all responsibility for the collection, although my specialty is paper conservation. I have to check temperature, light, humidity, air conditioning and that the staff handle the works correctly,” Ms Knowles says. Lyndsay Knowles is not the first conservator at the Robert McDougall. The first, John Harper, established a laboratory else-

where in the building. The second, Ms Knowles’ predecessor, Mary Lee, from Honolulu, set up and equipped the present laboratory and equipment.

“Some conservation work was being done here when I arrived (in October 1982) and efforts were being made to store the work correctly. We are continuing that system but expanding it and looking at other areas we can develop,” Ms Knowles says. The laboratory is set up, as with most paper conservation laboratories, with a wet area and a dry area. The best means of cleaning paper is often just washing it, Ms Knowles says. “We have the facilities to wash works and to chemically remove stains.” The latter may be done in a fume cupboard, which works like a huge Xpel-air, drawing the toxic fumes up and away from the person working. Preservation, restoration and conservation are the three aims of a conservator, Lyndsay Knowles says. That includes washing, dry cleaning, stain removal — all designed to prevent any further deterioration in works.

“Some people believe that we can make a faded painting look like the original. That is not possible. A faded painting stays faded. Any re-touching we do would be to tone a patched area so that it blended into the rest of the painting, but we don’t repaint works, or touch up signatures.” Repairs to tears are usually done with long-fibre Japanese paper or by making a coloured patch so that the mend is not obvious. The main aim is to stabilise and preserve works. With oil paintings the techniques are different “We would like to institute a programme where we could send out our oils to be conserved by a qualified conservator,” Lyndsay Knowles says. Eventually conservation of works in New Zealand institutions would revolve around a series of regional centres, which would specialise in a particular field. The Robert McDougall could become the centre for

paper conservation for the Canterbury regions. Conservators are rare in New Zealand. There is no academic course or training available in this country. The nearest course is held in Canberra, where a number of New Zealand conservators have trained. Lyndsay Knowles trained at Gateshead Technical College in England and has. worked at the Auckland City Gallery and the Anthropology Department of Auckland University,

which had a conservation section. “People can serve an internship with a gallery or museum prior to doing a course but there is no actual training available at an academic level There are very, few conservators in New Zealand and a vast amount of material requiring attention,” she says. Ms Knowles has received a grant from the Interim Committee for the Conservation of Cultural Pro-

perty to assist her to attend a conference in Sydney next month. The conference is being run by the 1.C.C.M., an Australian conservation organisation, and papers will include those by experts on the conservation of twenti-. eth century works. Because of the different materials and techniques used by today’s artists different methods are sometimes needed to preserve the works. It is this area Ms Knowles hopes to explore at the conference.