Wall Painting & Mural Restoration and Cleaning

Preparation for Mural Restoration and Cleaning

Model Sailboats mural by Oscar Anderson, on extended loan to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Gloucester, MA

This mural was a WPA project, painted in the 1930′s. It had been neglected for years including being folded and stored under the stage at the Gloucester City Hall. It was subsequently nailed to a wall at a new location. To complete the restoration, the mural was removed from the wall, flattened, lined, mounted on a custom made stretcher, cleaned and in-painted.

The photo on the left shows a protective facing being applied to the painting in preparation for removal from the wall so restoration could be completed.

On the right, is the mural after its restoration and cleaning, installed in its new location at the NOAA headquarters in Gloucester, MA.

Nature and the Artist: The Work of Art and the Observer by the Mexican master Rufino Tamayo

In March 2005, the monumental mural Nature and the Artist: The Work of Art and the Observer by the Mexican master Rufino Tamayo was permanently installed in the atrium of the newly renovated Brown Fine Arts Center. Originally commissioned by the College in 1943 to honor Elizabeth Cutter Morrow (class of 1896) for her service to Smith, it was painted as a true fresco on the walls of the old Hillyer Art Library during the artist’s residency at the college. It is the artist’s first large-scale fresco created in the United States.

“In the late 1960s, before Hillyer was razed to make way for the new Fine Arts Center, the fresco was removed from the library walls by the Boston firm of Oliver Bros, Inc., using the Italian strappo method. It was subsequently sectioned and remounted on twenty-two movable panels that fit together much like a giant puzzle. The theme of the mural is the act of artistic creation inspired by nature and the primal elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The mural can be “read” from left to right: from the inspiration of the subject, through the creative process itself (in a self-portrait of the artist at work), to the viewer’s encounter with a finished work of art.”

Curator’s Comment, Smith College Museum of Art