I coordinated this collaboration with the New York City parks department’s director of art and antiquities, Jonathan Kuhn, and his team from the Citywide Monument Conservation Program. This was a complex process, both technically and logistically, particularly because the height and public setting of the New York original cast limited easy access to it. Indeed, the support and collaboration of the New York team was critical to the project. They helped arrange the necessary permits, get appropriate lift equipment in place, and identify people in New York to take the needed measurements and molds from the Riverside Park sculpture.
Particularly important to the conservation project was the work of John Saunders, a conservator with New York City’s Citywide Monument Conservation Program. Saunders acted as liaison between the New York and San Francisco teams, demonstrating the collaboration that is an important part of conservation work. Especially in objects conservation, the broadest and most varied conservation specialty, conservators routinely consult with colleagues on materials and techniques that are outside the scope of their individual specializations and experience. Saunders brought many kinds of valuable expertise to the project. Not surprisingly, in his time with the New York City parks department, Saunders has replaced many swords and developed techniques to make them more robust and securely attached than the originals. Through both conservation and his own artistic work as a metal sculptor, he is expert in a range of traditional casting and fabrication techniques as well as with the surface patination of metals.