Conservation staff at American Art began a research project in 2009 with representatives from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) and the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) to investigate the materials and techniques of American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. We are lucky to have the largest public repository collection of Tanner's work, over twenty of which are featured in PAFA's traveling exhibition,  Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit.

 

Tanner experimented with different materials and often used eccentric techniques in his paintings. Conservators were surprised to discover that many of the paintings had numerous layers of paint, varnish, glue, and lanolin mixtures under the surface. In some works, such as The Good Shepherd (pictured above), they found 21 separate layers of applied material! All of these layers created a unique  texture in which, if you look closely, you can see past the surface to the complex structure below.   

 

Left: Cross section of The Good Shepherd showing 21 layers Right: Close-up of the surface of The Good Shepherd showing layers and paint application

Examining an artist's process in this way helps conservators understand and treat the factors that may be leading to an artwork's deterioration.   

You can watch conservators Amber Kerr-Allison and Brian Baade present more of their findings in this webcast, and you can also hear from Amber in the exhibition's audio tour.     

 

 

 

 

-- Georgina
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Smithsonian American Art Museum
McEvoy Auditorium, Lower Level

Materials and techniques used by American painters are an important but largely unknown part of the history of American art. In American Painters on Technique: The Colonial Period to 1860, the first comprehensive study of this topic, art conservators Lance Mayer and Gay Myers draw on three decades of research to compile and analyze first-person descriptions of American painters at work. Consulting a variety of sources from letters and journals to shopkeepers' bills, Mayer and Myers explore the experimentation and innovation of artists like Benjamin West, Thomas Sully, and Rembrandt Peale.

See our online calendar for more information.

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