Thornton Dial Conservation

At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, newly acquired art is isolated from the collection and treated as needed for infestation before it comes in contact with any other art. Recently, a large air-tight and pest-tight silver envelope sat in the middle of a basement storage room. Attached to the envelope through a group of tubes, bottles, valves and measuring instruments was a nitrogen gas canister. Inside the envelope, a newly acquired painting by Thornton Dial “Don’t Matter How Raggedy the Flag, It Still Got To Tie Us Together” was receiving an anoxic (oxygen deprivation) treatment before the painting could be allowed to join the collection. This treatment was designed to kill any insects that may have hidden in the painting before they could move into the museum and eat on the collection.

Insects make up more than half of the known living organisms on our planet. Mostly we ignore them and just consider them to be a fact of life, but when they get into a museum collection they become a huge problem because they don’t like to leave. See the dirty dozen of museum pests. Think about it, the museum environment is carefully regulated to keep an average temperature of 70°F and relative humidity level of 40% to provide a safe environment for the art and the human museum visitors…but these conditions are also perfect if you are an insect. A wide range of materials tasty to insects are commonly found in artwork… from wood and textiles to feathers and seeds. Add to these factors the lack of competition for territory and food and you have a great insect environment!

When we find weevils in our cereal or fruit flies on our bananas at home, we toss out the problem food and anything else that might be contaminated and the insect problem is taken care of. Throwing out the art is not an option! What museums do to solve the problem is use an approach called Integrated Pest Management. IPM looks at preventing, locating and eradicating pest infestations. By conducting this anoxic treatment, the IMA prevented the possible infestation of the collection so that it can be enjoyed by future generations.

The National Park Service and the Northeast Document Conservation Center have good information on this approach.

This treatment implemented and brought to you by Helene Gillette-Woodard, IMA Senior Conservator-Objects, Kathryn Campbell, IMA Graduate Conservation Intern-Paintings, and Pat Kelley, Insects Limited, Inc. General Manager.

18 photos, 3 videos | 641 views

items are from between 28 Apr 2008 & 23 Jul 2008.