MCI Project Summaries 2008 - Smithsonian Institution

MCI 6192.2 Painting: End of Season by Fritz Scholder
MCI Staff: Jia-sun Tsang, R. Jeff Speakman
This is a daringly abstract expressionistic painting which references a large mass of fire
that descends upon a starkly painted black space. Layers of vivid red, yellow, purple and fuchsia
are placed in drastic contrast to a seemingly flat dark space. The void, however, is actually
carefully filled with countless vigorous, small black and dark blue brush marks. This painterly
style that expresses an aura of spontaneity and immediacy was achieved by varying brush
texture, brush size and brush movement. This heterogeneous mixture of brush marks captures
and reflects the artist’s signature style of drips and splashes of the paint.
The painting appears to be mixed medium of water-based acrylic emulsion paint and
drying oil paint. The acrylic paint was used for the flat dark and occasionally colorwashed
background. The heavier impasto in the fireball appears to be oil paint. A heavy build up of the
oil has caused paint loss. FTIR analysis of a small paint chip from the loss confirmed the
observation that impasto near the paint loss was executed most likely in alkyd resin. Alkyd resins
are oil-modified polyester and were introduced in the early 1930s. The visual difference between
traditional drying oil and synthetic alkyd can be similar and yet different, depending on how the
paint was prepared and applied. In
general, alkyd tends to be more brittle than oil. There is no visible evidence of varnish on the
painting.
The most visible setback of the painting was the airborne dust and grime that had
accumulated over time and the two visible areas of paint loss in the fireball. Due to the
time constraint of the exhibition opening schedule, the current treatment focused on
short-term aesthetic integration of the two paint losses so the painting could be displayed without
noticeable distractive qualities. A minimally invasive method using inserts was used to fill the
losses. There was no attempt to remove the dirt.
The conservation was initiated through an upcoming retrospective exhibition of Fritz
Sholder entitled Indian, Not Indian which simultaneously opened in November 2008 at NMAI’s
Washington, DC and New York locations.
120