London-based art conservator Olympia Diamond is part art historian, part detective and part ethicist in conserving the history and beauty of artworks.
For art conservator Olympia Diamond ’06, a day’s work might entail carefully removing old, yellow varnish to give new life to a 17th century Baroque altarpiece or pioneering an innovative strategy using seaweed-derived gels to repair a rain-damaged modern artwork.
The expert in paintings, who works as part of a small team of conservators for a private, London-based company, also will spend time thinking about how to ethically conserve a specific piece and strive to ensure that any repairs and alterations to an artwork are reversible or retractable. She’ll call on knowledge of sciences such as chemistry and physics but will also take a deep dive into the world of the painting by researching the artist, the medium and the circumstances of its creation.
No matter what, she’ll expect the unexpected—which is the challenge and the fun of her profession.
“It’s basically creative problem solving every day. That’s what the job is,” Diamond said. “You’ve got to be open to lots of ideas because there’s no one way to do something in conservation.”
The following is an edited Q&A with Diamond.
What is the main goal of art conservation? Is it bringing a piece of art back to its original condition or beauty?
Broadly the idea is to bring something back, but in a way that has respect for its aging and what happened to it. A lot of what we do is figure out how to interact with these works ethically and do things that are reversible. I think the important thing is making sure that as much as you can, the artist’s intentions or ideas are the main thing that a viewer can pick up.
Let’s say there’s a big scratch across the face of a central figure in a painting, and the paint is flaking off. If I stabilize the paint, the painting is stable and can be viewed. You can then decide if you want to in-paint, or retouch, in the area of loss and only that area. We’ll use a specific type of paint that is completely removable from the original so when you look at it you read the figure as the first thing, and you’re not distracted by the damage. Then if you’re interested and got really looking, and see marks on the artwork, that’s its history. It’s an object. People forget that artworks, especially paintings, are physical, three-dimensional objects because you look at them on screens and postcards. But they are physical objects.
You were an art history major. Did you always know you wanted to become an art conservator? How did you get into this field?
It was kind of random. After I graduated, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I knew I wasn’t an artist, and I knew I didn’t want to do pure art history. And that stems from my courses at Earlham, because the degree is a mix of studio art and art history. Because you have that mix, you do quickly learn that there’s a disconnect in some of the art historical writing, where there seems to be a lack of understanding of the materials, or how artists work with materials. I just knew I didn’t want to go that route, and luckily got a job as the assistant soccer coach. I was able to be at Earlham, which was really nice, and I lived with some friends who were also kind of figuring life out, as it were. I wrote off to an art historian’s association and got a physical pamphlet for jobs in a career in the arts. There are so many different careers in the arts. I mean, it’s a huge, billion-dollar global industry. I was flipping through the pamphlet to get ideas, and conservation was there. I thought, oh, that sounds cool. In my head, I just sort of pictured Indiana Jones-type things, and I liked that you could work with the objects.
How does an art conservator look at an object?
You look and then you start to piece it together. If I see this mark here, am I seeing it in other layers, too? And then you examine it in all different lighting conditions. We use normal lights. We use strong lights, raking lights to get the texture, so we notice if there are any anomalies that can give you clues. We look with ultraviolet light, which can tell you about the different makeup of materials on the surface. Infrared light can sort of look through the upper layers of paint to show you what’s happening underneath. And sometimes if you need to, you can use X-rays to see things painted underneath. A lot of the job is really looking, and being thorough, and trying to gather the clues to what happened.
What was it like to restore Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s 1673 altarpiece Virgin and Child in Glory, which had been cut up and rolled during the Napoleonic War, and is now in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool?
That was a really fascinating project. I worked on it for 10 months, and part of what conservation often does besides just physically treating the artwork to restore it is we’ll also research the materials and techniques of the artist. You do as much of these analytical techniques as possible before you do any intervention on the painting so that you could really know to what level you’re taking it down. And with historic paintings, they have probably had many previous treatments or things that happened to them over several hundred years. So you’re not only understanding the artist and the subject, but you’re also trying to piece together what’s happened and who has interacted with it. It’s a bit like Sherlock Holmes. I did a million tests with different solvent combinations so I can make sure that I’m removing the varnish, and only the varnish. You can’t work like a robot. You have to keep paying attention and keep gathering visual information as you’re working and cleaning.
It must be so satisfying to find ways to solve problems like old varnish, tears to the canvas and other things that happen to paintings.
It’s really fun because you start to see the colors come out, and you get to see a lot of the brushwork. That’s when you can really get a sense of the artist’s handling of details. That’s the most exciting. You have quite an intimate relationship with the painting for a period of time. And what’s really nice is getting to know something and seeing it change.
Do you have the same joy working with 20th century and contemporary paintings, as you do now as part of the team from Julia Nagle Conservation LTD?
Working with living artists is incredible because you can help them show works in a way that they want to. You can talk to them and ask them questions. When I see marks, you can ask if it’s what they intended or if it’s something that happened later. You can have these conversations and record them so that the information gets passed down and people can make informed decisions about future treatments as well.
Is there a way that you could help people, even those without much of a background in art, to better look at art?
You can appreciate art even if you feel you don’t know about the subject matter. Do you like the colors? Is it made of concrete? Has the artist stuck plastic things on it? The material history of it is hugely fascinating. In the early paintings, how did they even get those materials, and how did the painting get from one place to another? Certain pigments used to be almost impossible to get. To prepare the paints, people in the workshop were grinding them for days to get this fine texture. I mean, wow. We just get it out of a tube. But before, that was a major, several year stage of an apprenticeship, just grinding pigment. I think the material history of the paintings is another way to access things, an easy, visceral way.
Story by Abigail Curtis. Photos courtesy of National Museums Liverpool