Apr

Vandalism of the Bomber Command War Memorial: Tips for Custodians of War Memorials

White gloss paint Antique Bronze Team Bomber Command was thrown over The Bomber Command War Memorial in Green Park earlier this year. Conservation work by Antique Bronze took place some weeks later after the memorial was initially hit.

The memorial is a magnificent creation by sculptor, Philip Jackson, who won the Marsh Award in Public Sculpture for his work. It’s easy to see why: the artist has personified bravery, comradeship and patriotism in the stance of his figures, their detail and expressions. We enjoyed many conversations with the public who came to visit the memorial during our works.

Several of the visitors had interesting facts to tell us about the Bomber Command unit which was instrumental in winning World War II. Of the 125k men who served, half lost their lives. Bomber command crews came from 60 different countries. Every member was a volunteer. The average age of those killed was 23 years old.

Treating The Bronze

Hours after the monument was vandalised, an emergency clean was undertaken. It was then that the RAF Benevolent Fund was advised that conservators should take on the project due to complexities of working on bronze.

Removing the remnants of white paint from the bronze’s surface was not an easy task. Although much of the paint had been taken off in the initial clean, thousands of smaller splashes remained.

Vandalism of Bomber Command War Memorial, Green Park

The surface of the sculpture had originally been hot patinated, but areas were fragile. Before the treatment was started, we noted that there was evidence of localised loss of original patina. This meant that to avoid further loss of the surface, the cleaning technique decided upon had to be very gentle indeed.

vandalism on Bomber Command War Memorial

An area of loss of original patina

“The aim of bronze conservation is always to leave as much of the original patina intact as possible.”

Another difficulty was that the surface was highly detailed meaning that many of the tiny splashes were located deep inside small grooves making them hard to excavate.

It may seem like superheated water or high-pressure cleaning may be an obvious option for this type of vandalism, but the fragility of the patina made this route a concern. The paint was so firmly adhered to the textured surface that to shift it, force would have to be centred on a very tiny surface area which had the potential to break-up more of the original patina.

Solvent cleaning was useful for softening the deposits, and soft nylon brushes did clean the surface without damaging the patina, but this cautious route on such a large monument made it a slow task. Our most useful tool came in an unexpected form – small wooden coffee stirrers provided the perfect profile to clean out grooves, but was soft enough not to scratch the patina.

Tips for Custodians of War Memorials:

If your memorial has been vandalised, consider these three tips:

Never use sticky tape to cover the surface – even if the graffiti is offensive. Industrial tapes contain residues in their adhesive which will etch through a bronze’s patina often causing more damage than the paint layer itself.

Call a professional for advice and help – if you try to use high-pressure cleaning methods on bronze, and you have a vulnerable surface, you can instigate serious loss of the original finish.

Don’t ignore vandalised bronze – it invites further anti-social behaviour.

Oct

Talking About Statue Restoration with Freud

Restoration of Sigmund Freud Bronze Sculpture

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

Call Us. 020 8340 0931