WACC News & Notes
One of six eight-foot bullfight posters after treatment by the WACC paper department; at right, posters drying on custom-made racks.
Bullfight Posters Highlight Capacity for Oversized Works Art collector Robert Deeley was in his 30s when he traveled to
highlighted the WACC paper department’s capacity to successfully
Spain in the early 1950s. The country was gorgeous, he recalls,
handle oversized works. Each poster was carefully unfolded and
a place of “interesting food and exciting people,” and, on hot
surface cleaned with a dry soft brush to remove soil and mold
summer Sundays, a land of pageantry and the savage thrill of the
spores. The sheer size dictated that only one poster could be
bullfight. Deeley visited bullfight arenas from Cordoba to Valencia
treated at a time. Each poster was humidified between sheets of
to Madrid, and was attracted by the oversized broadsides pasted
damp Gore-Tex in preparation for lining. The moisture from the
on the walls to advertise upcoming matches. Through friends, he
Gore-Tex relaxed the folds and creases and allowed the poster to
managed to obtain several posters in pristine condition. He folded
be pasted out face-down with starch paste. The lining required
the posters neatly into his luggage, and once home, placed them in
three conservators, two to hold the nine foot strips of heavy-weight
storage, where they remained untouched for some sixty years.
Japanese paper and a third to brush out the lining for proper
Deeley, now 91, recently brought six posters to the
adhesion. After overnight drying between felts, the broadsides
Williamstown Art Conservation Center to prepare them for sale.
were stretch-dried on custom-made panels under moderate
After six decades, they had developed pronounced creases
tension for four weeks.
and folds, slight mold and water staining, and some small tears
“Size was the most challenging aspect of the treatment,”
or other losses. These condition issues prevented the bold
said paper conservator Rebecca Johnston. “Each lining was an
chromolithographic images of matadors facing charging bulls from
exhausting and somewhat stressful procedure, but also hugely
being properly framed or viewed.
rewarding.” The posters are now ready for archival framing. These
The treatment of the eight-foot by nearly-four-foot posters 16 | Art Conservator | Fall 2010
colorful and striking images can be viewed upright once again.