NEW LIGHT ON ART
In a spring chemistry course, undergraduates are learning how to uncover forgeries, predict aging, attribute work to a specific artist, preserve ailing pieces and work with restorations. BY KEVIN MATTHEWS // PHOTOS BY JOSEPH GARCIA
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The wrinkle damage occurred when burglars carelessly removed the canvas from its frame, rolled it and stuffed it in a bag.
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➞ Finished restoration work is nearly impossible to detect.
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aking art in studio classes helped Kate Hoffmann to manage her stress as an undergraduate chemistry major. “It’s actually not that different from chemistry,” she said. “Chemists are really practical people who are standing at a bench and mixing two things together, and it’s a long process. It takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of meticulous work with steady hands and the right level of caffeine.” Two years ago, university curator Rachel T. Schmid spoke to faculty members about how to organize an art gallery exhibit tied to a course in any discipline. That led to two innovative collaborations during the current academic year. First, Schmid and Hoffmann, the John Stauffer Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Cal Lutheran, put together the art exhibit Traces (see caption below). And now, Hoffmann and Robert Dion, an adjunct faculty member, are team-teaching a related spring 2019 course on “Chemical Investigations of Art.” Students in the hands-on course spend time with objects in the exhibition and with other works of art, learning how to strip varnish off paintings with solvents and where to find chemical information in mosaics and sculptures. They ask questions about paintings and other works of art, considering what tools and techniques are available to answer them. “Is it truly painted by this person? Has something happened to the painting since? Are we going to lose this painting? Has somebody whitewashed over a mural? Is the wall falling down?” Hoffmann said.
A tan underlayer is applied as one of the art restorer’s preliminary steps.
Self-portrait of artist, circa 1900, oil on canvas, 42 x 34 inches. Courtesy of the Fine Art Conservation Laboratories. Damaged by burglars who were later apprehended, this self-portrait by an unknown artist has been partially restored at the Fine Art Conservation Laboratories in Santa Barbara. The owner died before deciding how much work to have done on it, leaving behind a painting that shows various steps in the restoration process. It was recently displayed at the William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art in the exhibition Traces: Revealing Secrets in Art and History, in which visitors were offered ultraviolet flashlights and protective goggles to observe the restorers’ work. 4 CLU MAGAZINE