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1. Hello Anne, I’m looking for advice on how to straighten a warped stretcher. The (painted) surface is canvas glued to plywood, 115x80cm, and it has approx 1cm warp curve at the bottom. I suspect the warping is the plywood. Is there a way to straighten it? I know this isn’t your brief, answering such questions, but you seem the most knowledgeable — or if you could recommend someone who may help, I’d be so grateful. Thanks!

2. Hi Rose. Some ideas….To straighten warped plywood can be very difficult as it has likely warped because it had to release some tension (possibly from absorbing moisture from the atmosphere) and it is difficult to reverse that release. You say that it is canvas adhered to plywood, but does it also have a wooden perimeter strainer around the edge? It could be this wooden perimeter strainer that is warped. The easiest way to reduce the appearance of the warp is to block out the diagonally opposite corner at the top so that it evens out the warp – ie then it appears only 0.5cm away from the wall at the bottom corner (as it is 0.5cm away from the wall at the top). You can attach a fitting to the back bottom warped corner which you then attach to the wall – this sometimes works to hold it in plane – even Velcro sometimes works. Another idea might be to frame the painting – a frame might hold it in plane? It depends how flexible the work is and whether it can be pushed back into plane and held there by a fitting or frame. You have to be careful pushing it back into plane as the paint layers might have also got used to the warp and they need to be flexible enough to be able to be pushed back. We hope this helps. Regards, QAGOMA