Category: Art Conservation

Go back in time to a busy corner of the Brisbane River

Posted by Elliott Murray   ●   16 May 2022

George Wishart (1872-1921) was born in Brisbane and was taught painting by Isaac Walter Jenner, Brisbane’s foremost marine painter (illustrated below). Wishart also worked professionally as a photographer and was associated with local firm Thomas Mathewson Photographic Studio (see contemporary depictions of Brisbane below). Wishart’s painting A busy corner of the Brisbane River 1897 (illustrated)…

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Go behind-the-scenes as we conserve Ian Fairweather’s paintings

Posted by Anne Carter   ●   2 Aug 2021

In 1957, artist James Gleeson, then art critic at The Sun newspaper, wrote that the paintings of Ian Fairweather (1891-1974) would never last.1 Reputedly using whatever materials came to hand within his itinerant lifestyle, the paintings of Fairweather are renowned as much for their fragility as their beauty, and this is part of their appeal.…

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Investigating Contemporary Artist Canvases

Posted by QAGOMA   ●   24 Feb 2021

As conservators caring for a range of paintings in the QAGOMA collection, we began to notice that some contemporary paintings on pre-primed canvases do not always behave predictably during conservation treatments. This, combined with questions from artists, led us to a three year collaborative project with colleagues in Singapore and Melbourne to assess the range…

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Conserving Gordon Bennett’s diptych ‘Number three’

Posted by QAGOMA   ●   17 Feb 2021

Unconventional types of damage require unconventional treatment strategies. This is certainly true for the collaborative major treatment QAGOMA’s paintings conservation team completed on Gordon Bennett’s (1955 – 2014) Number three 2004, a significant diptych painted in acrylic on Belgian linen. Bennett is well-known for his highly figurative narrative-driven commentaries on Australian colonial history and contemporary…

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Inquiring minds: Conserving a Collection

Posted by Amanda Pagliarino   ●   27 Dec 2020

The QAGOMA Foundation assists with Gallery conservation activities such as supporting complex treatments, technical art history studies, innovative research and analysis that frequently leads to publication and contributes to a wider body of industry knowledge, and enabled a research project with the Heritage Conservation Centre, Singapore. We delve into recent investigations into the materials and…

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