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Blog Category: Paper conservation

Preserving Images of the 1906 Earthquake

Posted by Debbie and Victor... on May 13, 2011

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco is home to a unique collection of 167 film negatives taken by photographer Arnold Genthe chronicling the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fires. The negatives were acquired by the Legion of Honor in 1943.

Genthe 1

Arnold Genthe (photographer), American, 1869–1942
Untitled (Earthslip on San Francisco's Union Street), 1906
Cellulose nitrate negative
Museum purchase, James D. Phelan Bequest Fund. 1943.407.6.1

On the day of the earthquake Genthe, an established photographer best known for his society portraits and views of old Chinatown, took to the streets of San Francisco equipped with a handheld Kodak camera and pockets full of roll film.

The film Genthe used was composed of a gelatin silver emulsion on a thin plastic support of cellulose nitrate. Cellulose nitrate film was introduced commercially at the end of the nineteenth century and remained in use until the mid-twentieth century. Lightweight, transparent and flexible, cellulose nitrate film freed photographers from the inconveniences of its predecessors, paper and glass plate negatives.

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Will Work for Art: Debra Evans

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on April 20, 2011

"Will Work for Art" is a new series of blog posts that will take you behind the scenes to meet the people who make the Fine Arts Museums possible. Our inaugural staff member is Debra Evans, head of paper conservation. Originally from Hawaii, she has been at the museums for 28 years.

What do you do here at the Museums?

I’m in charge of preservation and conservation for close to 100,000 prints, drawings, photographs and books.

How did you become involved with the Museums?

I came here in 1980 for a year-long internship in the paper lab, the last year in a three-year graduate program in art conservation administered by the University of Delaware and Winterthur Museum.

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Without Visible Means of Support

Posted by Debbie Evans on December 9, 2010

Installation of Japanese Books in the Reva and David Logan Gallery of Illustrated Books

Go behind the scenes at the Legion of Honor as paper conservators prepare and install 37 rare Japanese books for the exhibition Aspects of Mount Fuji in Japanese Illustrated Books from the Arthur Tress Collection.

Hokusai, Untitled (Fuji Seen from Above the Waves), [detail] from the book
One Hundred Views of Fuji, 1835. Collection of Arthur Tress.
 

   

Utagawa Hiroshige, Fuji seen through cherry trees, in the book
One Hundred Views of Fuji (Fujimi Hyakuzu), 1859. Collection of Arthur Tress.
 

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Not Your Average Picture: Installation of a 17-foot Photograph

Posted by Debbie Evans on December 6, 2010

Shi Guorui photograph

The Chinese artist Shi Guorui produced this photograph of the Donner Pass by creating a pinhole camera obscura. The photographic method is just like the oatmeal container pinhole camera you might have made in grade school, but on a much larger scale. The artist put a single small hole in the side of an otherwise light-sealed semi-trailer truck.  The light rays passed through this small hole forming an inverted image on a long, curved sheet of sensitized photographic paper.  We were told that the artist meditated during the hours-long exposure time.

At 4 feet 2 inches x 17 feet 2 inches, Donner Pass is one of the largest photographs in the Museums’ collection. Due to its unique size, installation required much advanced planning to come up with a method of hanging that was not only safe for the photograph, but also met the visions of the artist and curators. As the artist preferred the immediacy of the uncovered photograph placed directly on the wall, a tailored system of hinging materials and frame installation methods was devised by the paper conservation laboratory to safely meet this vision.  

After much preparation, the day of installation had arrived.  

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