Preparing for Eye Pop: The Backstory of the John Baldessari Portrait

With the opening of “Eye Pop: The Celebrity Gaze”(May 22 to September 5, 2016), visitors will encounter arresting portraits of famous figures executed in diverse media, but they may not realize the behind-the-scenes challenges of installing such a display. For the Conservation Department, oversized drawings on paper are particularly difficult to mount and frame for exhibition because they are so large and fragile. The exhibition’s 7 x 6-foot drawing of conceptual artist John Baldessari by Alphonse Van Woerkom is a case in point. This is the first time that the dramatic drawing has been exhibited at the Portrait Gallery.

Dutch artist Van Woerkom created John Baldessari—a larger-than-life headshot that reveals a wealth of detail—in crayon, charcoal, and pastel on paper. Much of the surface was vulnerable because the dry, powdery media can easily smudge, so care was used to protect it from physical harm. The oversized, flexible paper was unwieldy, making it necessary to mount the drawing on a rigid archival paperboard to prepare it for framing.

The drawing was in good condition when the Portrait Gallery acquired it. It had been temporarily mounted on the paperboard with strips of paper along the perimeter to hold it in place so it could be more easily viewed and considered for acquisition. Our art handlers moved it to an empty gallery to prepare it for the exhibition—it was too big for the Conservation Lab. We took the follow steps to ready it for “Eye Pop”:

Step 1: The drawing had to be removed from its temporary mount to a more stable format. I used a surgical scalpel to cut the paper strips and detach the drawing from the original archival mounting board.

Step 2: Edmund Myers, the Portrait Gallery’s exhibit specialist, prepared the new large mounting surface made of layered archival board.

Step 3: Ed attached hinges of lightweight Japanese paper to the back of the drawing. The hinges are made of strong fibers from the kozo plant and specially prepared wheat starch paste. They were affixed all along the perimeter of the back. These hinges support the drawing as it hangs vertically on the wall in its frame, helping to distribute the weight evenly and hold the edges in place.

Step 4: Ed passed the hinges through slits from the front to the back of the mounting board.

Step 5: Next, the hinges were pasted down onto the back of the mounting board.

The outcome: The drawing is safely mounted and framed and hangs in the gallery. Now the drawing is not only safe for exhibition, but also for permanent storage.

 

—Rosemary Fallon, Paper Conservator