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| Cleaning the ceiling of the Chelsea Hotel Office |
Lisa Rosen has been
restoring fine art for over three decades. In 1984, she moved to Rome, Italy,
and began as an apprentice. She
learned the techniques of a wide variety of media, from frescoes to ceramics,
from mosaics to marble. And of course, oil paintings. For the next 16 years, Rosen honed
her skills working on masterpieces in churches, museums and private estates throughout Italy. In
2000, Rosen returned to the United States and opened her own studio in
New York City.
Rosen specializes in oil paintings on canvas or panel from any
period. So when the Academy needed a painting restored, we knew just the lady
to call. In early June, Lisa and a handful of Academy
students restored “Merovingian Funeral,” by Belgian artist Louis Charles Van
Dievort (1899). The painting is part of the Academy’s
permanent collection, and has been exhibited in the lobby of 111 Franklin for
almost 10 years.
Below, Lisa answers some questions
about the restoration at the Academy, and her path to this exciting and
challenging career.
What
were the issues with “Merovingian Funeral”?
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| Detail of Cleaning |
I noticed the wonderfully large painting (16 x
8') on the main floor of the Academy several years ago. It
depicts a Merovingian funeral. The Merovingians ruled a region in what is
today's France, from approximately 500 to 800 AD. I couldn’t find out much
about Mr. Van Dievort, except that he studied in Paris at L'Ecole des Beaux
Arts.
In this painting, the layer of varnish that
covered the work was severely discolored, as though the original paint surface
was wearing a pair of yellow-brown sunglasses. This patina was falsifying all
the colors – the blues seemed green, whites seemed yellow, reds seemed brown,
etc. The canvas had a 3x3 inch hole in the bottom right quadrant. There was
also some flaking of the paint in various areas.
Can you describe the restoration process for this painting?
In restoration, a 'cleaning', aside from the
first removal of surface grime and soot, means the removal of this discolored
varnish. It is very exciting to watch as the yellow/brown melts away under your
cotton swab and the original jewel-like colors are revealed.
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"Merovingian Funeral" with stucco fills - midway through
restoration |
Most old paintings that have been varnished in
the past suffer from this discoloring. (Mastic and Damaar varnishes yellow
rather quickly. Today's new synthetic resins do not yellow.)
For the rip, we used a heated spatula to apply
a resin patch with Beva (a gel adhesive) and Pe-cap (a polyester fabric). All
painting restoration has to be easily removable for future restorers without
harming the original. Beva is fantastic, because it is painlessly reversible.
Once the patch on the back was dry and secure,
we turned the painting over to 'fill' the space created by the now adhered rip
on the paint surface. For filler we used stucco (a plaster-like substance mixed
with resin, which allows for movement in the canvas). Once dry, the stucco was
lightly sanded to re-create the exact same level of the surrounding paint
surface. For the chips and deep scratches, we followed the same method: fill
and sand.
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| Applying a patch with Beva |
Once the painting was clean and the chips,
rips, and tears were filled, we used watercolor to 'dirty' the bright white of
the stucco. If this had not been done we would never have succeeded in getting
the colors right when retouching. The white stucco would have glowed
through the in-painting.
We laid the painting flat, brushed gloss
varnish over the entire painting, and allowed it to dry.
Next came retouching/in-painting. Like
cleaning, this part provides a most satisfying feeling! One in-paints only in
the stucco areas where the original paint is missing.
Tiny dots of color are placed next to each
other, using a Series 7 sable brush and Maimeri retouching colors.
When we were satisfied with the final results,
we applied the final coat of gloss varnish to the entire painting, and allowed
it to dry overnight.
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| The rip. |
How did you become interested in art restoration?
When I was 13, during my summer vacation to LA,
I was taken on a tour of the restoration laboratory at the Getty Art Museum in
Malibu. I remember thinking as I walked through, "THIS is what I want to
do when I grow up!" When I got back to NYC, I told my mother. Certainly
to get me out of her hair, she suggested that I write to museums (in places
where we had friends/family) to ask if they would take a volunteer for the
following Summer. Out of all the museums I wrote to, the only one that
responded “yes” was the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, in Copenhagen. I saved all of
my babysitting money that year, bought the plane ticket and set off to stay
with our Danish friends. My mother is pretty brilliant!
I’m assuming it was a good experience?
For one month, I was in heaven. The lab was in
the basement of the museum. I would sit at the sink, wearing a white lab coat (and
braces on my teeth), feeling very grown up. I carefully washed shards of
Etruscan pottery. A week before I was to leave, the director of restoration,
Dr. Johansen, said "Please come early tomorrow, as we have a going away present for you.” In
the morning, the real assistants and I stood in our white coats around a large worktable.
On a pulley above us was a huge 'thing' covered by a tarp. Grinning, as he
slowly lowered the ropes, he said, "You have 'graduated' – and for your
final week you may start the cleaning of.....THIS..." He pulled off the
tarp to reveal a colossal head of the Roman emperor Titus. Well, I was in
love.
When I think back on their generosity, I often
cry. It was so kind of them to say 'yes' to a 10th grader, an American no less,
to allow me to come and basically take time away from their own work so that
they could show me the ropes. When possible, I try to give back in a similar
way.
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| Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Park Avenue, NYC. |
How did you proceed with restoration after that month?
Years later, at the age of 25, I settled in
Rome, Italy. I began as an apprentice, emptying slosh buckets up and down
church scaffolds and helping in the studio with small jobs for a very long time
AND eating loads of lentil beans. I now know that this was a test of sorts, to
see how serious I was. I saw several people leave after months of the
same.
Each work of art is so different from the
next, so restoration is a continual learning experience. Within four years, the
studio started to pay me. Four years after that I branched out with a partner.
We worked all over Italy – public churches, private villas and palaces.
It was amazing. I stayed 17 years.
I was getting older and was still eating too
many lentils (read: broke). In Italy, the restorer almost always has to advance
the money for scaffolding. The state pays you in instalments over a
period of 3 years. We never broke even. So with all the glory of
touching beautiful objects in the most sublime places, I was eventually swayed
back home by filthy lucre.
I returned to New York City in 2000. I made
cold-calls to galleries, private dealers, anyone that would look at my 'book'
of past restoration work. Little by little, by word of mouth and my website, I built up a steady clientele. I can proudly say that I haven’t had
lentils in a very long time! I love my work.
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