How do we preserve art for the future?

How are works of art preserved for the future, and who fixes them if they have been damaged? The Conservation Department at Tate is the team behind cleaning, fixing, restoring, and conserving a collection of over 70,000 artworks spanning five centuries. They bring together a combination of art knowledge and scientific expertise in order to care for a vast and varied collection, working behind the scenes to ensure the safe storage and exhibition of works of art.

Because of the size and span of the collection, the materials and techniques used to make such a variety of works vary enormously. In the paintings alone you might come across traditional media such as oil paint, canvas, resins, waxes, gold leaf and wood and you may also encounter some unusual fine art materials such as house paints, plastic, blood, insects, vegetation and even chocolate! And that’s not counting the many sculptures, films, installations, textiles, and time-based media included in the collection, each with their own unique and often unconventional materials. Because of this, technical examinations and analyses are crucial to developing an understanding of how to properly care for these artworks.

In order to really get to know what they are working with, conservators and conservation scientists investigate artists’ materials and techniques through research and experimentation. They carefully study parts of the collection that are difficult to conserve and poorly understood in terms of construction and materials. They undertake analysis of materials and structures which provide resources for researchers and conservators in the future. For a small number of contemporary paintings, like those by Chris Ofili, these experiments involve the team creating works of art in the same style and materials as the artist (including elephant dung) and subjecting them to variably controlled conditions to see how the original will respond to movement, light, and the aging process.

In other cases, a conservator’s response is more urgent, like when Mark Rothko’s 1958 painting Black on Maroon was unexpectedly damaged with graffiti ink. Cleaning is a delicate and demanding part of conserving works of art. For paintings, layers of dirt, discoloured varnish and old restorations that may be disfiguring or obscuring parts of the composition are painstakingly removed, revealing the original paint surfaces of work of art like in Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait below. Structural work might also be necessary if the canvas or wooden panels that support the paint surface need strengthening or have been damaged, and ultimately some paintings can be conserved but not restored due to how much they have degenerated.

Through their efforts, the conservation team allows us to engage with and study works of art while preserving their integrity for years to come. Explore their work with art and science in this tutorial.