IU Art Museum restores American modernist piece

In March 2003, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded the IU Art Museum with a $30,000 grant for the conservation of Stuart Davis' "Swing Landscape." Work began on the painting last July and is expected to be completed this spring. After the work on "Swing Landscape" is complete, the mural will spend roughly six weeks on display at the Centre Pompidou in Paris as part of a major exhibition of art and music.\n"'Swing Landscape' is one of our blue chip pieces, and to have outside dollars to ensure its well-being is a huge benefit to the art community," said IUAM Director Adelheid Gealt. \nArguably one of the most important American paintings ever, the mural has been in the IUAM collection since 1942. The painting, a modern work completed in 1938 for a Brooklyn housing project, depicts a Massachusetts waterfront. \n"('Swing Landscape') is a major painting by an extremely important American early modernist," said Sarah Burns, professor of American art history, in an e-mail. "Its conservation will enable the museum to continue its mission of educating both the University community and the general public, in addition to preserving this important painting for posterity."\nEncompassing 98-square-feet, "Swing Landscape" was too large to undergo conservation work at the IUAM and has spent the past eight months at the Intermuseum Conservation Association in Cleveland, Ohio. \nWhile five conservators at the ICA have been working on the painting, Margaret Contompasis, the IUAM's painting conservator, has worked most consistently with the mural, spending one week a month on the painting in Cleveland. \n"It's a personal privilege to work on this piece," Contompasis said. "Art of this caliber is not easily found." \nWork on the mural is being documented and photographed for future use by scholars and conservators.\nConservation work on the piece included cleaning the surface of the painting and restoring areas of loss while preserving the original artwork as much as possible. According to Contompasis, there are several large sections of the mural where the paint once fell off and has since been restored. However, as both paintings age, their slight differences in color become more apparent. \n"We're re-doing a lot of old repairs because they no longer match the original," Contompasis said. "Any disruptions in the field detract from the viewer's experience."\nAll of the money from the grant has been devoted solely to the conservation and restoration of "Swing Landscape."\n"I think, under the current administration, the arts have not been funded as they have in the past. And funding is so important because without the funding, we don't have art," said Rosemary Jesionowski, a graduate student in photography.\nAfter all of the work on the mural is finished, "Swing Landscape" will travel to Paris as part of an exhibition highlighting the relationship between music and painting.\n"Davis was on the forefront of this movement that intertwined these two art forms," Contompasis said. \nThe mural will be the main piece in a section of the exhibition devoted to American art. After coming back to the United States, "Swing Landscape" will spend time on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art before returning to Bloomington next year.\n-- Contact staff writer Jennifer Gunnels at jgunnels@indiana.edu.