Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art recently won the Arkansas Museum Association’s award for Outstanding Achievement in Conservation for its restorative work on Vaquero, a 16-foot fiberglass sculpture of a Mexican cowboy atop a bucking bronco.
The towering piece by the late Luiz Jimenez was installed along the Crystal Bridges art trail about a year ago, but repairs and repainting on it began two years before in Houston.
Jimenez’s creation, cast in 1987-88, consists of polychrome fiberglass over an internal steel frame. The exterior includes layers of color paint covered by a protective clear coat, much of which wasdamaged or had deteriorated from lengthy periods of exposure to the elements. The paint Jimenez used didn’t help matters. The museum’s award submission said he used acrylic urethane paint, which is harder and less flexible and chip resistant, “making it more likely to crack when exposed to fluctuating temperatures.”
“As a result, extensive treatment has been necessary to maintain the condition of the materials and preserve the artistic integrity of the sculpture,” the document said. The sculpture at Crystal Bridges is the third in an edition of five by Jimenez, with the others installed outside the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington and in the city of Houston’s Moody Park.
The museum received the award during the association’s annual meeting in North Little Rock. Crystal Bridges’ submission was one of three in the conservation category, said Jama Best, representative for District 2 on the Arkansas Museums Association board and chairman of the awards program.
“Work on it was extensive,” Best said referring to Vaquero. The restoration team made the most of what it had to work with, given the time frame they had to do it, based on the makeup of certain materials Jimenez used for the original sculpture.
Kevin Murphy, the museum’s former curator of American Art, said last year that Jimenez was one of the most prominent Southwestern and Latin American artists working in the postwar period. He said Vaquero represents the diversity of the country and is a commentary of sorts on the American West, past and present - thus the evident need to preserve it.
The Bentonville museum acquired the piece in the fall of 2011 from the estate of the late Frank Ribelin. It had been on loan to the El Paso Museum of Art since 1998. Crystal Bridges called on Robert Pringle Art Restoration to help with repairs, and the sculpture was eventually moved to an indoor paint-spray facility in Houston.
Once there, more extensive damage was discovered, such as hairline cracking on surfaces most exposed to the elements, particularly the figure’s hat, pistol and saddlebag, as well as horse’s tail, mane and legs, the museum said.
Experts had to move quickly to ensure proper bonding of the different layers of color paint and the clear coating. Different areas of the sculpture received separate treatment.For instance, the base - a steel frame covered by cement stucco - was stripped of its peeling paint, had any cracks filled and repainted using a sample area of unexposed old paint that depicted the original color. The before-and-after photos show a completely different color of paint on the base.
All restoration was done by July of 2012, though some minor work was done just prior to installation at Crystal Bridges in March of last year. It was once considered for the space at the entrance of the museum’s restaurant, Eleven, but it was too large to fit the space.
Jimenez died in his studio in New Mexico eight years ago this summer when a 9,000-pound section of a similar work, the 32-foot Blue Mustang, fell on him and severed an artery in his leg. He was 66. Blue Mustang, a rearing cobalt blue horse with glowing red eyes, is on display at Denver International Airport.
Other area institutions that received awards at the recent American Museums Association gathering were the Tontitown Museum for Outstanding Achievement in Media for their newsletter and Facebook page; Marty Powers from the Shiloh Museum with an honorable mention for Professional of the Year; and Kate Johnson at the Clinton House for Professional of the Year.
Allyn Lord, director of the Shiloh Museum, received the Peg Newton Smith award for lifetime achievement in the museum field and Arkansas museums.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/02/2014