Assessing works on paper

A behind-the-scenes look at paper acquisitions

Every year the Worcester Art Museum adds to its permanent collection, either by purchasing works from dealers or individuals or by receiving gifts and bequests from art collectors. In each scenario, curators and conservators follow a thorough process to determine the suitability of the work for WAM. (For example, does it fill a gap in the collection or increase the presence of underrepresented artists or groups?) An important part of the process is ascertaining the work’s physical condition, including if it will require conservation treatment upon entering the collection and if the Museum has the appropriate storage conditions to preserve the work for future generations. Many of the Museum’s new acquisitions are works on paper, which are often vulnerable to environmental conditions. To learn more about what happens when assessing a potential new print, drawing, or photograph for the collection, we asked Paper Conservator Eliza Spaulding to walk us through the process she follows.

Eliza Spaulding, WAM’s Paper Conservator

access: Your work is important in preserving the Museum’s collection of works on paper. Tell us what your role is in the acquisitions process. ES: As the paper conservator, my role is four-part: to study the materials and techniques of how a work on paper (print, drawing, or photograph) was made, to assess its condition, and to determine how we would conserve, if necessary, and preserve the work if it became a part of our collection. My Conservation Department colleagues in paintings, objects, and arms and armor have similar roles in assessing artworks of their respective media.

access: How do you approach your assessment of a potential acquisition? ES: The Museum’s curators and Director consider acquisitions from a range of sources including: galleries, art fairs, and private collections around the world. When possible, I prefer to examine a potential acquisition unframed and in person at WAM. Here, I have access to a range of tools that allow me to understand an artwork as fully as possible. I use a variety of different light sources, such as raking light, which casts light at a 45-degree angle across an artwork’s surface to see texture, and transmitted light, which shines light through an artwork to see density. I also examine an artwork’s surface through a stereomicroscope to see its material composition up close and detect condition issues. Sometimes, it is necessary to examine an artwork by visiting it wherever it is located, or through photographs.

In addition to the physical examination, curators, conservators, and registrars collaborate to gather as much information as possible about the artist, the history of the artwork—including past conservation treatments—and to consider if, how, and where we would be able to safely store the artwork at the Museum. Acquiring an artwork by a living artist is a special opportunity to learn directly from the artist about their materials, techniques, and how they envision their artwork changing over time.

access: What are the challenges you have encountered when assessing acquisitions? ES: Many of the challenges are related to understanding how an artist created their work. For example, when I first examined a proposed acquisition by Ernst Heeger (Austrian, 1783–1866), I thought the artworks were drawings. Upon further examination and talking with the dealer, I learned they are, in fact, salt prints hand colored with watercolor. Both a scientist and an artist, Heeger combined his interests and took pictures of specimens through a stereomicroscope, capturing the images on sensitized glass negatives. He processed the glass negatives as salt prints, and then delicately hand colored them, using watercolor to achieve these exquisitely delicate specimen depictions.

access: Are there any acquisitions you have particularly enjoyed working with? ES: In the past several years, WAM has acquired so many wonderful works on paper that have broadened our collection in important and interesting ways. These include increasing the number of underrepresented artists and introducing artworks that explore innovative techniques in thoughtful and dazzling ways. I enjoyed working on Louisiana P. Bendolph’s American Housetop for the Arnetts and Mary Lee Bendolph’s To Honor Mr. Dial, both from 2005. In the Bendolphs’ large and stunning prints, the artists pressed small scale quilts onto wax-coated plates (a softground technique)—capturing the delicate physicality of the quilts—to which etching and aquatint were added.

Top: Ernst Heeger, Trichoteryx excavata. Imago. Oligella foveolata. (Adult stage of hollow featherwing beetle), detail, 1860, salt print handcolored with watercolor, Gift of Hans P. Kraus, Jr., 2022.11 Opposite page: Mary Lee Bendolph, To Honor Mr. Dial, 2005, softground etching, aquatint and spitbite on paper. © 2022 Mary Lee Bendolph / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Museum purchase through the estate of Blake Robinson, 2021.4