Outdoor Sculpture

The 2012 focus meeting in New York City hosted by the Met took stock of current interests, needs, and practices in the conservation of modern and contemporary outdoor painted sculpture. Conservation of these works is especially challenging given the uncontrolled and often harsh environments to which works are constantly exposed; yet there is the expectation that their painted surfaces should remain pristine. In addition, the paint layers hold a crucial protective role for the substrate.

For these reasons, the treatment of these sculptures routinely involves major interventions that would be deemed drastic in other areas of conservation, such as full repainting of a work, often accompanied by stripping of previous paint layers. Such treatments pose many challenges when it comes to choosing the right type of paint and defining the correct surface appearance; they can also be extremely costly, which emphasizes the need to minimize the frequency of these conservation campaigns.

It became clear, throughout the meeting, that conservation practice in this area will be advanced most effectively through close cooperation of the different professions involved, in particular conservators, paint chemists, paint applicators, and the artists' estates, foundations, and studios.

• Facilitate dialogue between professionals involved in the conservation of outdoor painted sculpture (conservators; paint chemists; the paint industry; artists' estates, foundations, and studios; curators; and caretakers)
• Create guidelines for the production of paint swatches, the documentation of paint surfaces (gloss, color, and texture), and the sharing of such information among those involved in the preservation of outdoor painted sculpture
• Collaborate with artists' estates, foundations, and studios (EFS) to develop guidelines on original paint surfaces related to their respective artists and best practices for production of EFS-approved coupons
• Develop paints specifically formulated for the field, with improved durability and suitable working and optical properties in collaboration with the Army Research Laboratory and the paint industry, and in consultation with conservators and EFS
• Explore the possibility of carrying out local retouching to increase the duration between costly and invasive stripping and repainting campaigns
• Develop case studies on outdoor painted sculpture and sculpture parks to explore bridges between theory and practice
• Build a repository of paint swatches documenting original paints and/or those approved by EFS
• Build bridges between the industry and the conservation profession
• Disseminate the knowledge gained through courses and open access publications

Former team members: Catherine Defeyt, Julia Langenbacher, Alan Phenix, Rachel Rivenc, Nikki van Basten,

Abigail Mack, Abigail Mack Art Conservation; James Sejd American Stripping Company; John Escarsega, Army Research Laboratories, Brian Trimble and Maria J. Coltharp, California State University, Long Beach; Julie Wolfe, Getty Museum; Maria Nevelson, Louise Nevelson Foundation; Randy Terrill, Nile Protective Coatings; Rosa Lowinger and Christina Varvi, Rosa Lowinger and Associates; Sarah Auld, Tony Smith Estate