Science saves art

As a young art conservator at the Winterthur museum near Wilmington, Del., Richard Wolbers was assigned an early 19th century painting that needed cleaning. It was Jacob Eichholtz's portrait of Ann Ross Hopkins, grand-daughter of George Ross, one of the Pennsylvania signers of the Declaration of Independence. The oil paint had been covered with a coating of varnish, and applications of linseed oil had dulled the appearance of the portrait.Having trained as a biochemist at the University of California, San Diego before studying art conservation, Wolbers decided to apply a lipase enzyme to help break down the layer of oil. "It worked like magic," said Wolbers, now 56 and an associate professor and coordinator of science at the University of Delaware's conservation program at Winterthur. In the life sciences, using enzymes is routine. In art conservation in the mid-1980s, it was radical. Word of his success with the enzyme spread quickly, said Wolbers, who remembers a curator from the Philadelphia Museum of Art coming to the lab to watch. Wolbers even slowed down his work on the painting to accommodate several other visitors who wanted to see the enzyme in action.Wolbers' work is an example of biology becoming more common in art restoration, a field that traditionally has been more closely associated with chemistry. A former endocrinology researcher at the Salk Institute, Wolbers has introduced the art world to a range of techniques from life science research -- such as solvent gels, resin soaps and staining processes that use fluorescent molecules to tag particular proteins and oils in the layers of a painting.In the last few years, he has developed methods for cleaning John La Farge's murals in Boston's Trinity Church, Native American rock paintings in Las Vegas, the architectural interior details of the US Capitol, the Islamic art at Doris Duke's Shangri La mansion in Hawaii, and the Buddhist grotto paintings of Mogao, China.Although Wolbers has been an art conservator for two decades, he continues to follow advances in the sciences, always looking for techniques that can be applied to conservation. He noted that, as conservation moves away from using harsh and often toxic solvents, he often asks himself, "Who else has a critical cleaning problem?" Several of his techniques have been adapted from the food and cosmetic industries, where many nontoxic cleaning methods have been pioneered. Others, such as a cleaning with solid carbon dioxide (dry ice crystals), have come from the microchip manufacturing industry.A native Californian, Wolbers didn't set out to become an art conservator. "It's one of those things you sort of discover," he said. He chose to study biochemistry at UCSD in the late 1960s in part because he wanted to go surfing. But along with the reef at nearby Black's Beach, there was the draw of the highly regarded faculty. His undergraduate professors included Linus Pauling, enzymologist Nathan Kaplan and chemist Stanley Miller, who was Wolbers' advisor. After receiving a B.S., Wolbers went to work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which he remembers as being a very creative, art-loving environment. Jonas Salk's wife, Françoise Gillot, had been married to Pablo Picasso. Wolbers' boss, the endocrinologist Roger Guillemin, who won the Nobel Prize in 1977, collected art and encouraged Wolbers to paint. "We'd talk as much about stretching canvas as about the biochemistry of the materials that we were working on," Wolbers said. In 1977, Wolbers earned an M.F.A. in painting from UCSD. A few years later, he applied to the University of Delaware's art conservation graduate program. Co-sponsored by Winterthur, a former du Pont family estate, the Delaware program is one of a small handful offered at North American universities.At Winterthur, he began thinking about bringing life science techniques into art conservation. Compared to the science world, innovation was rare in conservation, where conservators often used the same techniques that had been used for centuries. Because of the irreplaceable nature of art, conservators are cautious when it comes to adopting new techniques, and Wolbers' work met with some resistance early on.Time, however, has proved its value. In June, he was given a distinguished achievement award from the American Institute for Conservation. "Many consider him our resident conservation genius," said Joyce Hill Stoner, director of the Preservation Studies Doctoral Program at the University of Delaware.One of the biggest challenges now facing Wolbers is the aging of modern and contemporary art. Popular water-based acrylic paints often dissolve when solvents are applied. Synthetic resins and adhesives are also giving conservators headaches, he said. "There's still no good solution for removing Scotch Tape."Kent Steinriede mail@the-scientist.comCorrection (posted November 27, 2006): When originally posted, this story incorrectly identified the murals in Trinity Church as being by John Singer Sargent. The Scientist regrets the error.Links within this article:Art Conservation at the University of Delaware http://www.artcons.udel.eduE. Garfield, "In Tribute To Linus Pauling: A Citation Laureate,"The Scientist, Jan. 23, 1989 http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/9085/Stanley Miller http://exobio.ucsd.edu/miller.htmRoger Guillemin http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1977/guillemin-autobio.htmlAmerican Institute for Conservation http://aic.stanford.edu

Science saves art

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