Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

Fig. 3: Poster after 2012 conservation treatment
Fig. 4: Nazi broadside before treatment
completed with the help of two large sheets of
Mylar serving as transferring aides. The object
was then placed for 30 minutes under moderate
weights in a ‘sandwich’ of blotter paper, spun
polyester and a sheet of woolen felt. The blotters
were changed a few times. When the poster was
dry and flat, pieces of toned paper shaped to fit
the areas of loss were attached with wheat starch
paste from the front.
Small losses within the ink layer were retouched
with dry pigments, pastel pencils and
Winston Newton watercolors. The objective was
to make the main area of the image visually cohesive
but not to reconstruct the image or the
lettering (Fig. 3). Retouching proved to be tricky
in the areas where previous intervention had
taken place but overall successfully unified the
main image.
The Nazi announcement broadside was printed
in the 1940s in Krakow on a thin, pink machinemade
paper (Fig. 4). This propaganda poster
consists primarily of historical text and minimal
visual elements. Therefore the goal of the treatment
was to stabilize the object with minimal
aesthetic intervention. Just as in the case of ‘Do
Broni’, the condition of the object was poor. The
paper support was dimensionally unstable, had
numerous tears and losses along its main folds
and had its upper right–hand corner completely
missing.
Although at first glance this treatment seemed
similar to the treatment of ’Do Broni’, it proved
to have its own challenges. The pink color of the
broadside was unstable, so only blotter washing
was possible. As in the previous treatment, lining
was necessary to stabilise the very weak and
brittle original support. First, all the folded areas
were reinforced from the back with thin strips of
Japanese paper and wheat starch paste. Some of
these areas were very brittle and abraded. After
a matching color was identified, an infill for the
missing corner was created and attached from
the back with wheat starch paste. As before, the
lining process was aided by two large sheets of
Mylar serving as transferring aides. Unfortunately
the first lining procedure was unsuccessful.
The paper chosen for the backing was too thick
and the dimensionally unstable original support
expanded too much during the treatment and as
a result did not attach well to the backing paper.
A combination of a few factors made the second
lining successful: It was done with a thinner
kozo paper. The original object was humidified
for a shorter time. After the lining paper was
adhered to the back of the original, the back was
‘massaged’ with bone folders over thin blotters
in the folded areas. To further reduce the creases
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
115