I have an old oil painting my grandmother painted. The painting is more than 75 years old and is looking very dark and dirty. There are also a few scratches and a hole in the canvas.
I live in South Carolina. Does anyone know of a nearby restorer that could make this painting look like new again?
2007-01-10 10:17:59 · 5 answers · asked by tykyle 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Visual Arts ➔ Painting
I found an oil painting restorer in South Carolina called "The Paint Doctor" (oilpaintingdoctor.com). I don't know if this is near you. The artist will restore paintings that are shipped via insured mail or you can drop the painting off. You can also send in digital photos to the artist for a preliminary estimate so you can find out what you are getting into before you ship the painting off somewhere.
I had a painting restored recently that hung over the family fire place for years. It had gotten very dark from smoke so you couldn't see the picture very well. I thought the painting was ruined. I had a local restorer clean the painting by carefully removing the old dirty varnish. The process was done without removing any of the original paint. The process made the painting look like it originally did many years ago. I guess that is why they call it paint restoration rather than just plain cleaning. The process removes accumulated dirty with out changing the original work of the artist. I think you will be very please if you find the right restorer to clean and patch your grandmother's painting.
2007-01-11 10:20:48 · answer #1 · answered by M M 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The rule of thumb is don't even touch it. By restoring it, you actually do it more harm. The painting is old, it should remain as the Artist painted it. Those colors only existed in your grandmothers eyes and could never be placed in the same pattern or arrangement as she originally intended and presented as a finished work.
You could pay an Art Historian to clean it for you, takes about 2 months to do it, but they takle special care not to damage it. if that is possible. An art historian would never restore or paint over the original work of the artist. One cannot say they respect the art and the next day go about changeing it.
2007-01-10 18:42:43 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The technology exists now that you could get a good picture of it and have it reproduced as a giclee on canvas. You could then "restore" that version of it--there won't be a hole in the new one, but there will be whatever the camera recorded there instead. You could hire an artist to "juice" up the colors and fix the copy. This gives you a good piece to hang in your house without the expense of restoring the original and possibly damaging it even more. There are many mail order firms that will reproduce it for you--do a search under "digital to slides" and you'll see a bunch of printing firms specializing in artwork.
2007-01-10 21:01:09 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I wouldn't trust this to just anyone.
Call up the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and ask for suggestions on a good restorer in your area. Chances are they may know one. Or call up a local museum, but the bigger ones will know more.
2007-01-10 18:37:50 · answer #4 · answered by Voice 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Contact your nearest art gallery. If they don't restore paintings they would be able to refer you to someone who could.
If the gallery does restore oils, call several for the best estimate.
2007-01-10 18:38:09 · answer #5 · answered by Judith 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋