Gail,
I have always
preferred to glaze our paintings when they travel for several reasons.
Obviously, it protects them from being touched at a loan location you may
not be familiar with, even though you read and believe everything written in
their facilities report. As a conservator, I am interested in minimizing
vibration during transport especially for paintings on canvas. I believe
that gazing the painting with acrylic helps to dampen vibrations, especially if
the painting is also backed with a sheet of inert foam attached to the
backing board that just touches the back of the canvas. However, few curators
like to view a painting through the traditional acrylic sheet material because
of the glare it produces. Therefore, we used to allow the borrowing site to
remove the acrylic for exhibit (if they requested to do so) so long as they
replaced it before shipping it back to our museum.
About two
years, everything changed with the creation of Optium Acrylic. This is a very
good non-glare acrylic sheet material. When properly lit with normal gallery
track lighting, the Optium nearly disappears, even up close. Used in a historic
house setting such as a room with some table lamps at eye level, some points of
light are reflected by the Optium, but they are not disturbing and one can
usually find a viewing point that eliminates them. Another advantage is
that the microclimate created around the painting between the
glazing and the backing helps to stabilize humidity changes, even without silica
gel. Going a step further, a tightly controlled enclosure can be
created by "encapsulating" the painting by covering the backing-board
with Marvelseal extending around the edges of the painting and taped to the
front edges of the Optium, inserting Artsorb behind the backing-board before the
enclosure is sealed.
We now glaze
all our paintings before they travel and require the borrowing institution to
purchase the Optium Acrylic as one of the conditions for loan. None have
requested to remove the Optium and the paintings look terrific on exhibit.
Another benefit is that we are slowly securing Optium for some of our
most important paintings that we can choose to use in our own museum buildings
to further protect our paintings from pointing fingers, environmental
fluctuations, dust and pollution, and vandalism. Cost is around
$35/sq foot plus $20 for boxing and $25 for shipping.
No, I do not own
stock in the Optium company and they are not paying me anything. I just like
their product. For distributors, Google "Optium glazing."
Richard L. Kerschner
Director of Preservation and
Conservation
Shelburne Museum
PO Box 10, Route 7
Shelburne, VT
05482
(802) 985-3348 x3361
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