The brooches in Kiff Slemmons Hands of the Heroes series, part of the exhibition Contemporary Art + Design: New Acquisitions, are each inspired by historical figures. Browse our round-up of interactive materials below to help you become familiar with the heroes represented and their historical significance.
Kiff Slemmons, Hands of the Heroes, 1987–1991, silver, ebony and mastodon ivory, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Deedie Potter Rose; TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund for Wearable Art, 2020.12.1-12
Tracy Hicks was a beloved figure in the Dallas arts community when he passed away in 2014 at the age of 68. Having myself moved to the city only in January 2017, I never got a chance to meet him, but his reputation soon reached me as I attempted to immerse myself in the local arts scene. Hicks was a foundational figure in Dallas, where he had lived since he was a toddler, before ultimately moving with his wife, journalist Victoria Loe Hicks, to North Carolina.
In fall 2018, Greg Metz invited me to see a brilliant retrospective of Hicks’s work at UTD’s SP/N Gallery. After walking through several rooms that showcased Hicks’s investigations around the intersection of scientific and archival processes with art, we encountered a light-locked space. Upon turning the corner, Freedman’s Field, a collection of excavated artifacts artfully arranged on a table, lay in resplendent glory. I had known of the work because it was first exhibited at the DMA in 1994 as part of the Encounters series, which keenly paired his work with the YBA artist Damian Hirst.
Tracy Hicks, Freedman’s Field, 1990–94, wood table, pottery shards, broken bottles, old watch parts, fragments of porcelain dolls, coins, buttons, oxidized silverware, and rusted metal, Dallas Museum of Art, Charron and Peter Denker Contemporary Texas Art Fund, 2020.14
Seeing it for the first time in person, after being steeped in the artist’s world and regaled with stories of his life and practice through Professor Metz’s fabulous tour, was a revelatory experience. The intense love and care Hicks had shown for these objects, which were repositories of such an important and lesser-known history of my new hometown, was palpable. I instantly fell for it, and knew it belonged back at the DMA, where it could communicate these local histories to visitors in perpetuity.
Close-up of Freedman’s Field
After that visit, we sought to learn more about the history of Freedman’s Town and its eventual demolition, beautifully explored in scholarship collected in SP/N’s exhibition catalogue, and in a semi-permanent exhibit at Fair Park’s African American Museum. Meanwhile, our collections team got to work learning how to care for such an installation, meeting with those who had cared for it before—including friends Ron Siebler and Nancy Rebal, who had shown the work in a memorial exhibition Rebal organized for Hicks in Corsicana in 2015—and learning firsthand about the myriad of decisions Hicks made in creating the work. As you’ll see, Freedman’s Field is unlike most works you’ll find in an art collection. The typical rules of cataloging just don’t apply here. It is better conceived as an archaeological dig. And Erick Backer, Preparator; Katie Province, Registrar; and Fran Baas, Objects Conservator, bravely undertook the challenge to apply their best professional standards to its care.
Interim Chief Conservator Fran Baas carefully treating the artwork.
The word curator comes from the Latin curare, “to care,” and this work is all about care: the care Hicks showed for the city of Dallas, the care the many local artists we met with showed to Hicks, and our care in honoring those relationships that predated us. My hope is that this work’s testament to that loving care might encourage us to pay closer attention to the world around us so that we can hear the stories it yearns to tell us.
Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck is the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Artat the DMA.
Click here to dive deeper into this piece by watching an excerpt from Ron Siebler’s film Remembering Tracy Hicks.
Earlier this year, Dr. Vivian Li, the Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art, had the opportunity to interview artist Do Ho Suh, whose work is featured in the exhibition For a Dreamer of Houses. Read excerpts from the interview below about his inspiration and how the pandemic has changed his practice, and click here to read the full interview.
Do Ho Suh, Hub, 260-10 Sungbook-dong, Sungbook-ku, Seoul, Korea, 2016, Polyester fabric and stainless steel, 117 × 102 × 65 in. (2 m 97.18 cm × 2 m 59.08 cm × 1 m 65.1 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2019.15. Photo by John Smith.
VL: Many of your fabric piecesare replicas of a specific place you once called home and are often described as such with the precise address as the title. Can you describe the place that inspired Hub, 260-10 Sungbook-dong, Sungbook-ku, Seoul, Korea (2016), and why you selected to make a fabric replica of this particular structure?
DHS: Hub, 260-10 Sungbook-dong, Sungbook-ku, Seoul, Korea is an area of my parents’ home in Seoul, where I grew up. It’s a traditional han ok (Korean house)—a 70s copy of the one King Sunjo (1790–1834) built in the early-nineteenth century because he wanted to experience the life of ordinary people. I’ve continued to stay there whenever I’m back in Seoul so it’s the site of decades of memories for me. I think of the fabric architecture works as, in a sense, an act of shedding skin, slipping out of my clothes and packing them quietly away to unfold elsewhere.
The Hub sculptures are transitional or in-between spaces—corridors, passages, entryways. This one is an area between the bathroom and the living room/bedroom. Traditional Korean architecture is much more porous than in the West—there is less rigidity to the separation of the rooms, and the outside world is much more integrated: sounds travel; doors or windows become walls; you feel the temperature of your external surroundings keenly; the spaces themselves are reconfigured throughout the day and night. That porous quality all feeds into this sculpture and it’s partly why the translucence of the fabric is key. I began using fabric partly because of its affinities with those qualities in Korean architecture and Hub, 260-10 Sungbook-dong is probably the closest one of my Hubs comes to the original structure, because three of the walls are doors and windows covered in rice paper. The transition feels very natural.
VL: How has the pandemic changed your studio practice, or is there anything you have become more focused on lately?
DHS: I keep thinking about what it means if you don’t have somewhere to call home. I first started to consider what home meant when I left Korea and I’ve never stopped, so for me it was something that came into focus when it was challenged. So many people must be struggling with that now. Also how borders—physical, political, social—impact our behaviors. I’m a transnational artist and I’ve benefited from notions of a borderless world, the fluid and constantly moving nature of the cultural sector. What happens to that now? They’re such complex areas though. I’m also thinking a lot about what’s happened in the wake of globalization, and to an extent neoliberalism—all the lost optimism, all the ambitions to build new walls and borders.
In terms of my studio practice, I’m inevitably doing less work on larger-scale physical projects and a lot of thinking around philosophical concerns. Even the fact that I’m spending a lot of time cleaning my apartment – I’m touching and seeing it in different ways and that’s really interesting to me. Looking anew at the objects you unthinkingly interact with on a daily basis. I’m also working a lot with my two young daughters on an ongoing project, but it’s really taken shape during the lockdown. We’ve been building a lot with Legos and whole fantastical worlds of modelling clay. I’m interested in what happens to our psychic space as we age, how the child’s mind works and what imaginative play communicates about how we frame our worlds, how we try and impose order on the chaos and how much better children are at navigating that chaos.
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See this work in For a Dreamer of Houses, now open to the public at the Dallas Museum of Art through July 4, 2021. Plan your visit to the DMA and reserve your tickets here.
Our recent reopening has stirred up great excitement, especially among DMA staff, who are thrilled to be able to welcome you back to your city’s museum! We asked a group of DMA curators to tell us what they are most excited about as the Dallas Museum of Art opens its doors. Read what they had to say.
Dr. Heather Ecker, The Marguerite S. Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz Curator of Islamic and Medieval Art One of the joys of working with the Keir Collection is making new discoveries—sitting down with a manuscript or picking up a work in ceramic always feels like an adventure. A scribal note or a design can speak quite directly across geography and time.
Tile, unknown artist, 15th century, red clay with painting in blue and turquoise on a white slip under a transparent glaze, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art, K.1.2014.893.1
Julien Domercq, The Lillian and James H. Clark Assistant Curator of European Art I am thrilled to be able to see real works of art again, and for visitors to be able to enjoy them firsthand in the galleries. There’s just nothing like being able to lose yourself in looking closely at brushstrokes of paint.
Frans Hals, Portrait of Pieter Jacobsz. Olycan, 1629–30, oil on panel, Private Collection, Courtesy of David Koetser Gallery, Zurich
Dr. Vivian Li, The Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art I love seeing once again Miguel Covarrubias’s Genesis, The Gift of Life, an iconic Museum landmark that has become woven into the fabric of Dallas. Countless families, friends, and young ladies in their spectacular quinceañera dresses have captured beautiful memories in front of it.
Miguel Covarrubias, Genesis, The Gift of Life, about 1954, tempera on cardboard laid on panel, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Jorge Baldor, 2019.60
Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art I am excited to return to For a Dreamer of Houses, an exhibition that was installed but never opened to the public before August 14. The Rubber Pencil Devil installation has a three-hour video, so that’s where I hang out during breaks.
Alex Da Corte, Rubber Pencil Devil, 2018, glass, aluminum, vinyl, velvet, neon, Plexiglas, folding chairs, monitors, high-res digital video, color, and sound, Dallas Museum of Art, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2019.59. Photo by John Smith.
Dr. Nicole R. Myers, The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art Among the things I’ve missed most are seeing and hearing visitors’ excitement as they explore the galleries and linger in front of objects that speak to them. It’s great to see the Museum come back to life.
Plan your visit to enjoy all of these wonderful art experiences and more! Reserve your timed tickets here. We can’t wait to see you back at the Museum!
In connection with Ida O’Keeffe’s painting Star Gazing in Texas, the focus of the first episode of our new series Break for Art, we asked our friends at Texas Parks and Wildlife about the elements of a great stargazing. Find out what they had to say about the beauty of stargazing in Texas, particularly with their offerings at Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway.
Ida Ten Eyck O’Keeffe, Star Gazing in Texas, 1938, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, General Acquisitions Fund and Janet Kendall Forsythe Fund in honor of Janet Kendall Forsythe on behalf of the Earl A. Forsythe family, 2017.36
“Wow. Look at how brilliant the Milky Way is here!” or “I can see the planet’s rings!” Those are but a few exclamations of wonderment often proclaimed from excited visitors to Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway when viewing its dark night sky surrounded by scenic canyon vistas.
Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway. Photo credit: Derrick Birdsall
The park protects and conserves a night sky rated as a #2 on the Bortle Scale, a scale that measures the darkness of the night sky. Low numbers on the scale represent an exceptionally dark night sky while higher numbers on the scale represent a night sky that unfortunately, most cannot even view anymore. The reason for some unviewable night skies is due to a fairly new concept for most people known simply as “light pollution”.
Litter and other pollutants of the environment are closely monitored at Caprock Canyons State Park, but there is also another source of pollution that is strictly kept in check… lighting. All light sources within the park are shielded fixtures that ensure that the lights they emit are being used efficiently and conservatively. No light is permitted to shine into the night sky and “pollute” its darkness. The effect is a brilliantly clear night sky, full of stars and celestial bodies that can be clearly seen from all areas of the park.
Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway. Photo credit: Derrick Birdsall
Perhaps the best views of the night sky at Caprock Canyons State Park are found deep within the canyons. At the park’s North Prong Parking Lot, visitors gather around several large telescopes with lawn chair in hand, to eagerly await the park’s night sky program known as “Constellations in the Canyons”. Volunteers and amateur astronomers set their telescopes up for viewing planets, stars, and constellations while visitors listen to star stories and useful solutions to light pollution. Later, visitors line up beside the telescopes for their turn in the telescope viewfinder to look and learn about these celestial bodies from knowledgeable and dedicated volunteers.
Caprock Canyons State Park is committed to programs like these, because they help connect visitors to the night sky and foster an appreciation of dark night skies as a resource that needs protection. With dark sky educational programming, visitors come away with a sense of appreciation and a desire to do their part in protecting the night sky. In addition, examples of dark night skies like those in public areas such as Caprock Canyons State Park, remind visitors of their heritage and the night sky every culture on Earth shares with each other.
Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway. Photo credit: Derrick Birdsall
The park is currently working towards its designation as an “International Dark Sky Park”, a highly prized designation with the International Dark Sky Association (IDA). Once designated, the park will be featured as a destination for dark sky viewing along with many other public places that intend on conserving our dark night skies for future generations.
We reached out to our curators and invited them to shed light on significant and/or recent acquisitions that resonate with them during American Artist Appreciation Month. Find out more about the contemporary piece by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and 1930 Marsden Hartley painting that they picked!
Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Montana Memories: White Pine, 1989, mixed media on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2020.15
The paintings of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith—an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana—comment on the ongoing effects of US colonization and environmental destruction. Seen this way, the linear divisions of the ochre ground reference the US government partitioning of her natal land, while the foregrounded symbols enact a tension between settler and indigenous cultures.
Sue Canterbury, The Pauline Gill Sullivan Curator of American Art
Marsden Hartley, Mountains, no. 19, 1930, oil on board, Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 2008.24.McD
I see the colorful splendor of a New England autumn as an alluring characteristic particularly associated with America. It is the motif to which Hartley turned in 1930 to allay criticisms that his work was not sufficiently “American” in its subject matter. These paintings of the White Mountains helped turn the tide of his career.
We reached out to our curators and invited them to shed light on significant and/or recent acquisitions that resonate with them during American Artist Appreciation Month. From Diego Rivera to Marsden Hartley, find out what works they picked!
Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Montana Memories: White Pine, 1989, mixed media on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2020.15
The paintings of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith—an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana—comment on the ongoing effects of US colonization and environmental destruction. Seen this way, the linear divisions of the ochre ground reference the US government partitioning of her natal land, while the foregrounded symbols enact a tension between settler and indigenous cultures.
Mark Castro, Jorge Baldor Curator of Latin American Art
Rivera’s works often depict aspects of Mexican culture that make the country unique. This flower seller acts as an avatar for Mexico’s indigenous peoples and cultural traditions. For Rivera, these communities had ancient histories that gave them a greater sense of authenticity and history than could be found in the United States.
Sue Canterbury, The Pauline Gill Sullivan Curator of American Art
Marsden Hartley, Mountains, no. 19, 1930, oil on board, Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 2008.24.McD
I see the colorful splendor of a New England autumn as an alluring characteristic particularly associated with America. It is the motif to which Hartley turned in 1930 to allay criticisms that his work was not sufficiently “American” in its subject matter. These paintings of the White Mountains helped turn the tide of his career.
Among the treasures in the DMA Archives are four letters exchanged in the summer of 1941 between artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi and the Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Richard Foster Howard. For more than 40 years, these letters were the only works by Kuniyoshi housed in the DMA. Since 1988, Museum visitors have become acquainted with him through Bather with Cigarette. This star of the American art collection is currently on view in My|gration in the Center for Creative Connections.
Displayed alongside works by artists and designers including Hans Hoffman, Peter Muller-Munk, and An-My Lê, Kuniyoshi’s painting represents one of the 14 immigration stories shared in the exhibition’s “Arrivals” section. The 1941 correspondence between the 51-year-old artist and the DMFA director sheds light on the challenges and discrimination Kuniyoshi experienced in the US.
Yasuo Kuniyoshi, from the Archives of American Art, photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son
Kuniyoshi arrived alone in Spokane, Washington, as a teenager in 1906. Although he initially planned to stay only a few years, by 1910 his artistic talents had led him to New York City. There he enrolled in a series of schools and entered the circle of leading figures in American art.
Bather with Cigarette was completed in 1924—the same year Congress effectively banned immigration from Asian countries. Kuniyoshi had already witnessed the government’s discriminatory policies. His marriage to fellow artist Katherine Schmidt in 1919 caused her to lose her citizenship. In 1922 the Supreme Court ruled that Japanese people were not the same as “free white persons” and thus did not have the same rights to naturalization.
Fast forward to the summer of 1941. Headlines about naval attacks and international conflict fueled racism and xenophobia in the US. Kuniyoshi, like many American artists, wanted to travel the country in search of new inspiration. Unlike most of his peers, he could not embark on a trip without being hyper-aware that his appearance and national origins could be perceived as threatening. To mitigate the risk of police detention, he asked regional arts leaders to provide letters verifying his profession. The DMA Archives holds Kuniyoshi’s initial request to Howard (May 22, 1941), the director’s two-part response (here and here, May 26, 1941), and the artist’s thank you (mailed mid-journey from Colorado Springs, July 9, 1941).
Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s original letter to Richard Foster Howard. Click HERE to expand.
In December 1941, Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the US declared war. Kuniyoshi was not among the 120,000 people of Japanese heritage who were forcibly moved to internment camps in early 1942. He was, however, declared an “enemy alien.” Federal authorities impounded his bank account and confiscated his binoculars and camera as potential spy equipment. Despite this maltreatment, he spent the war years working for the federal government as a graphic artist and radio broadcaster (valued for his fluency in Japanese). Following WWII, Kuniyoshi became the first living artist to be honored with a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1948. Although he had identified as an American and lived in the US for over 40 years, immigration laws prevented him from becoming an American citizen before his death in 1953.
Emily Schiller is the Head of Interpretation at the DMA.
As a museum, the DMA has not concentrated, historically, on collecting widely in the fields of medieval European art nor Islamic art. There are interesting works in the collection, however, that connect with Spain and its Islamic past. One of these is a serene work by the American painter Paul Cornoyer (1864–1923), Afternoon Madison Square.
Paul Cornoyer, Afternoon Madison Square, 1910, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase, 1914.1
A spectacular tower in the painting, one of New York’s early skyscrapers, reflects the rays of the setting sun in winter. Built at the corner of 26th Street in 1890, it formed part of the Madison Square Garden built by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. Stanford White (1853–1906), the principal architect, built himself an apartment in the tower that must have provided extraordinary views of the city. The tower was inspired by one of the finest architectural survivals from the 12th century worldwide, the minaret of the Almohad mosque in the city of Seville, Spain, known as La Giralda.
Commissioned by the powerful Almohad caliph Abu Ya‘qub Yusuf (r. 1163–1184), who was based on the European side of his cross-continental empire encompassing much of North Africa, the minaret formed part of a superb new congregational mosque. It was one of the few buildings in the medieval Islamic world for which the names of the succession of architects responsible were recorded: Ahmad b. Basho, ‘Ali al-Ghumari, and Abu Layth al-Siqilli. Its original height—some 220 feet—was so tall that it was constructed so that a muezzin, the official who performs the call to prayer, could ascend its interior ramp mounted on a horse. In the 16th century, long after Seville had been conquered by the Castilians and the mosque converted to the city’s cathedral church, a Renaissance bell tower and turret was added, surmounted by a sculpture that turned in the wind, giving the tower the popular name of La Giralda, or the “Revolved.” One can just make out the weather-vane sculpture that is mounted at the summit of the tower in Paul Cornoyer’s painting, a gilded figure of Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens that is now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Apart from its other historical details, Cornoyer’s painting represents a lost New York vista. The tower was demolished in 1925.
Left: Rug, around 1525–50, wool, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.93; Right: Rug, around 1550, wool, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.108
The DMA also has an extraordinary collection of Spanish carpets originally collected by Hungarian publisher Emery Reves and now forming part of the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. The Reves Collection is displayed, in part, in the wing of the Museum that re-creates the couple’s home in the South of France, Villa La Pausa. These carpets belong to a long tradition of carpet weaving brought to the Iberian Peninsula in the 10th century, possibly by Turkmen families from Central Asia. Spanish carpets are woven, unusually, with knots over single warps, a technique otherwise known principally from the ancient cultures of the Tarim Basin in Western China. By the 16th century, the period to which most of the DMA carpets date, the art of carpet weaving had shifted, in part, from a culturally Morisco (Muslims forced to covert to Catholicism around 1500) cottage industry with designs transmitted from mother to daughter, to one that appears to have been more workshop-based.
Rug, around 1525–75, silk pile, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.87
The most unusual Spanish rug in the collection is one made entirely of silk. Only one other silk fragment from this period is known, now at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. The design of the DMA carpet tends toward the Renaissance, with its classicizing swags in the border and floral bouquets in the field forming a lattice pattern. Its colors are now faded—the background would have been a rich red. Most Spanish carpets from this period are made of wool and are believed to have been woven in the region of Murcia and Alicante in southeastern Spain. The expensive silk fibers used in this rug link its commission to the region of Granada, where silk had long been cultivated by Muslim farmers (later Moriscos) in the mountainous Alpujarra region, and possibly to a very high level of patronage.
Dr. Heather Ecker is The Marguerite S. Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz Curator of Islamic and Medieval Artat the DMA.
Interim Chief Conservator Fran Baas with Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse’s L’Alsace
As the checklist was being developed for the recent reinstallation of the European Art Galleries, curator Dr. Nicole Myers consulted with the Objects Conservation Team about the DMA’s terracotta bust L’Alsace by French sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. This mid-19th-century sculpture had not been featured in our permanent collection galleries in over 10 years, and the re-envisioned gallery design, featuring recent bequests and a more in-depth narrative of European art history, was just the opportunity to review some of our holdings. When we assessed the sculpture’s condition, we agreed on a few issues that needed to be addressed prior to display. Though structurally sound, this sculpture needed some attention to increase the aesthetic legibility. The curatorial-conservation collaboration is an insightful joint investigation as both subject matter experts work together to best present a work of art to the public.
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, L’Alsace, before 1883, terracotta, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Dr. and Mrs. Edmund Pillsbury, Fort Worth, in honor of the opening of the new Dallas Museum of Art, 1983.153
This captivating terracotta sculpture is a symbolic representation of an idealized young woman of the Alsace region—a politically charged cultural and historic area because governance passed back and forth between France and Germany from the Thirty Years’ War to World War II. Though it is unclear exactly when in the 19th century this bust was created, the Alsatian culture is a unique mix of French and German influences.
The subject’s elaborate hairstyle (crimped bangs and two long braids, also called “plaits” in the 19th century), a section of an embroidered traditional dirndl apron dress, and bunches of flowers at her chest and in her hair are all visual cues to amplify the allegory of femininity and nationality. In the mid-19th century, the societal fashion across the European countries celebrated elaborate and rather complicated hair, and even for a time, these crimped bangs. A woman’s crowning glory was her hair. Keep in mind, hairstyle codes for women differed with age and even marital status. And, in this sculpture, we also get a snapshot of the region.
Charles Spindler, cover of Léon Boll’s “Wines and Coteaux d’Alsace” brochure, 1900
To both increase the legibility of and focus the viewer on the sculpture’s attributes (both in subject matter and material appreciation), the goals were to give it a general cleaning and to minimize stains and discolored old repairs. The minor oily grime discolorations seen around the high-touch areas, such as the underarm area, were reduced mechanically with vinyl erasers. The deep interstices in the terracotta had accumulated layers of dust, darkening the recesses even further. Dust and some minor spots of mold were carefully removed with a selection of tools (soft brushes, swabs, and a HEPA vacuum with micro-attachments).
Notice the minor oily grime discoloration around high-touch areas, such as this underarm area, before conservation.
Before and after reducing discolorations mechanically with vinyl erasers
Unifying the appearance of a previous restoration (a large patched hole on the back of the sculpture) with the surrounding areas was the most time-consuming part of the treatment. This old restoration was still structurally stable but drew unnecessary attention because the old fill materials used did not match the terracotta. So, the areas were toned back with reversible conservation paints.
The old restoration fills did not match the original terracotta.
Fran Baas treating the sculpture
Before and after treatment
She is now on view, under an acrylic case for protection from dust and grimy hands, with each side visible and offering something interesting for the viewer. Please find this work in our virtual gallery and spend time appreciating its craftsmanship and how the terracotta clay was manipulated by the artist before firing. You can see the artist’s fingerprints in the flower petals at her chest, revealing the creative spontaneity during the working process. Notice her exquisite outfit depicting her regional identity but especially appreciate that large bow. She’s gorgeous—even more so now that she’s been cleaned and restored!
Notice the details in the flowers, including the artist’s fingerprints in the flower petals.
Fran Baas is the Interim Chief Conservator at the DMA.
