Restoration of the masterful statue of Sigmund Freud by Croatian Sculptor, Oscar Nemon, was recently undertaken by Antique Bronze.

The Tavistock Clinic have a fascinating art collection which this monument is a part of. In Mind, The Tavistock and Portman Foundation staff magazine, wrote a feature about the works, text reproduced here:

Freud Gets A Makeover

Outdoor statues in London have a tough time of it: the vicissitudes of the weather, the pollution, the pigeons… So it is no surprise that the bronze sculpture of Freud outside the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which was partly responsible for introducing Freud’s psychoanalytic theories to British medicine, is receiving much-needed restoration work.

Led by Lucy Branch, Senior conservator at Antique Bronze, the statue restoration team started work on Monday 5 July by giving the sculpture and its plinth a steam clean. Then they began the careful restoration work by hand, using fine copper brushes and pumice powder to remove corrosion. As Lucy, who has a degree in fine art, did a three year apprenticeship and a masters in post at the V&A, explained: “Corrosion forms unevenly in patterns so they need to be blended out by hand – you want the sculpture to be seen as the artist intended and not have your eye drawn to areas of degradation.”

The statue restoration is made more difficult by the hot weather. With the full sun on the sculpture it gets very hot causing the cleaning materials to melt and evaporate. The public have also been very interested in what is going on and Lucy says:

“It is important to be able to engage with people, while getting on with the work, but we have had quite a few rude comments.”

The sculpture is by the Croatian artist, Oscar Nemon, who grew up in Osijek on the borders of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He studied in Vienna in the 1920s, which is where he first developed an interest in the work of Freud. He then moved to Brussels, becoming a well-known portrait sculptor. In 1931 he received the commission to sculpt Freud for his 75th birthday. Freud was a little uncertain, but agreed to let Nemon sketch him in brief sessions between one patient and the next.

Overnight Nemon produced a preliminary clay and that won Freud over. Nemon continued to work for several years visiting Freud whenever he passed through Vienna on his way to Osijek and then finally in London in 1938, after the political situation had led both men to leave mainland Europe.

It is these London sittings that led to the final harsher, more abstract sculpture in terracotta which were used for the bronze sculpture that now resides outside the Tavistock Centre.

On seeing the sculpture Freud commented in his diary:

“The head, which the gaunt, goatee-bearded artist has fashioned from the dirt — like the good Lord — is very good and an astonishingly life-like impression of me.”

Lucy Branch is similarly appreciative of the work saying: “When you get close to the sculpture it is really beautiful, with clearly defined tool marks on the surface. Freud is seated in a very dominant pose, making this a powerful sculptural figure, but also a fine representation of a man drawn from life.”

The restoration of the statue will be completed with more colouring work. Then layers of protective coating will be added, to make the statue as stable as an outdoor statue can be.

Find the whole article here: Freud Gets A Makeover

If you’d like to know more about restoration work on bronze, read a case study on our blog, or if you want to be taught about the principles of bronze restoration by us, sign-up for our training course, coming in 2019

Jun

Monument Restoration: The Aldersgate Flame

Aldersgate Flame Disfigured by Corrosion

The Aldersgate Flame whose legibility and purpose had been lost

The Antique Bronze team recently undertook restoration work on The Aldersgate Flame. This is a special monument located outside the entrance to the Museum of London. It is reputed to be the approximate location of John Wesley’s evangelical conversion in 1738. The English cleric and theologian went on to be one of the founding fathers of Methodism. He inspired its followers to right wrongs of the day, particularly with regard to social issues, such as prison reform and the abolition of slavery.

The mighty sculptural scroll features text from Wesley’s journal describing his conversion experience. Over time, the environment had done its worst and the monument’s surface had corroded quite comprehensively. Only small patches of patina were left intact. In a situation like this monument restoration is the only way to proceed.

Text was disfigured by corrosion

As the design of the sculpture centres around its text, visitors looked confused when guided there. They could no longer understand the statement that was intended to engage the public or appreciate its value because of the poor legibility and disfiguration of the surface. This is where champion of the monument, Alison Gowman, came to its rescue. She found funds to restore the monument.

Conservation Ethics

When a bronze surface is highly disfigured, a conservator has very few options open to them. Repatination involves the recolouring of a bronze’s surface by hand. The method employs almost identical methods to how a foundry would have finished the bronze when it was first made. This was a method that in previous eras was used so often that it was barely questioned. Today, we try to avoid treatments that do away with the passage of time in order to balance the original finish with acknowledgement of the object’s history.

Repatination, though, should make conservators pause. It goes against several principles that we try to uphold such as the desirability of techniques to be reversible and minimal intervention whenever possible.

Though technology has stormed ahead in the last decade, the repertoire of restoration technique suitable for large bronzes remains in the dark ages. Monuments which are hammered with rain, baked in the full sun and blown about by fierce urban winds often need repatination work in order to restore them to usefulness. So in this particular case, legibility trumps reversibility.

We were fortunate to have some segments of patina that were not ruined. This meant we were able to coax the new colour into existence and blend it with the segments that were already intact.

The Aldersgate Flame after bronze restoration work

Text on the scroll after some repatination work

All Is Well Now

All is well now for The Aldersgate Flame and it is being enjoyed again by its visitors. Recently, Wesley Day was celebrated and the monument received a great deal of praise. Repatination should not necessarily be a technique conservators are fearful of using. Considered carefully and used sparingly, it continues to be a necessary technique in the preservation of outdoor sculpture.

The Aldersgate Flame after Restoration

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Talking About Statue Restoration with Freud