William Tecumseh Sherman had seen better days.
His jacket was filthy. His forehead was flecked with dirt. Someone, apparently, had even shot him.
“This will be a lot of work to restore this painting,” said art conservator Barry Bauman, looking over a portrait of the crusty–in more ways than one–Civil War general.
Bauman was introducing Sherman to the students in an art restoration class he has started at Lane Tech High School on Chicago’s North Side. The five students in the class, chosen from about a dozen advanced-placement art students who had applied, will help with the portrait’s restoration during the 16-week course.
“I love being a conservator,” said Bauman, who has more than 30 years in the business and who is providing his expertise gratis. “Doing this work is a joy to me. But in addition, I wanted to provide some education too.”
A `beautiful blend’
The goal, he said, is to show the students “the beautiful blend of art and science that conservation is all about.”
The general is the perfect subject.
“We look at it, see what’s wrong with it,” he told the students, who hadn’t seen the painting until Bauman brought it to class on this Thursday morning. “Then you figure out how to fix what’s wrong with it.”
He said the unsigned 34-by-43-inch portrait was completed in 1890, a year before Sherman died, and has been hanging in the Sherman House, the general’s birthplace in Lancaster, Ohio. (It was sent to Bauman for work just two weeks earlier; having sold his conservation business in 2003, he now restores fine works of art for museums, schools and other non-profits at no charge.)
A cursory look at the front of the painting showed some obvious problems, even to a non-expert. The surface was wrinkled, the painting was dark, there appeared to be patched rips and tears.
Getting a closer look
In his examination for the class, Bauman started with the stretcher, the wooden frame to which the painting is tacked. All things considered, for a 115-year-old piece of wood it’s in good shape. And with only one set of tack holes in the canvas, this most likely is the original stretcher, he says.
When he turned the painting around, the students saw eight white patches of various sizes, as well as a large water stain. The patches, he said, were an attempt at conservation a half-century or more ago. One of the holes that was patched appears to be a bullet hole–round holes tend to be from bullets, and they’re not that uncommon, he says.
“I’ve seen bullet holes in a lot of military portraits,” Bauman told the class. “The same thing happens today, but usually it’s beer bottles.”
The patch job didn’t hold up. The outlines of some of the patches could now be seen on the front of the painting.
“When I see a patch like this, it’s very disturbing to me,” Bauman said.
He went on to point out some of the general’s other problems. Those earlier restoration efforts included oil paint–conservators today used a special acrylic–and varnish, which have darkened over the years. The tacks have caused stress and buckling of the canvas. The stretcher itself has left an obvious impression on the perimeter of the canvas. There’s dirt embedded in Sherman’s forehead.
“If you didn’t wash your face for 130 years, you’d look bad too,” Bauman said. “The dirt, the grime, the air pollution on his face have collected over the years.” Once he explained the problems, Bauman outlined a course of action.
The first step is to clean the picture, using solvents to separate layers of varnish and dirt from the paint. Next he’ll address structure problems, such as holes, tears and rippling. Then he’ll put a new canvas on the back of the old one to return the painting to a flat plane. Last comes the in-painting, or retouching, where he’ll fill in the tears and missing areas with gesso, a mixture of chalk and what he refers to as rabbit skin glue.
“We will actually bring in some rabbits . . . ,” he said as a couple of his students recoiled.
He was kidding, of course. “Rabbit skin glue” is a name for a gelatin that he will make, just as it was made in the 13th and 14th Centuries.
And when the course is over, Gen. Sherman will head back to Ohio, good enough “to hang in any museum,” said Bauman, who would have charged around $3,500 for the restoration work when he had his own company (as it is, he’s charging only $285 for materials). And his students–all of them seniors who plan to pursue art in some form in college–will have a big leg up, having completed the only high school course of its kind in the country.
“If I could take this course from Barry I would, because what he’s going to teach them you can’t get anywhere else,” said Rick Ceh, Lane Tech’s art department chair.
Ceh believes that color theory is the most important thing the students will take away from the class, which also includes slide presentations and field trips.
A head start on college
“It’s extremely difficult to get into this field,” Bauman said. “There are only handful of colleges that give a master’s [in art conservation]. Often, a student, when he’s a junior or senior [in college], will want to get into it, but it’s too late. These students will have a basis and the ability when they get to college.”
They’re already picking things up.
“I went to the museum five days ago and saw paintings probably very much like that, needing a bunch of work,” said student Sandra Arriaga. “But I didn’t pay attention. I just looked at the content [of the painting]. Now I look at the painting [and see] the creases and everything.”
“This is really interesting,” said Justine Dombrowski. “And I’m learning a lot. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to go into, but he has inspired me to go into art conservation.”
As for his future, Bauman is already planning for next year. Lane Tech recently recovered a 1909 mural that had once been on display in the school but was thought to have been lost. The 19-by-7-foot painting will be worked on by Bauman’s next group of students.
For more information on Bauman and his work, go to www.baumanconservation.com (for a look at the Lane Tech course outline, click on Participating Institutions, then on the Fine Art Conservation link at the bottom).
