FTIR and Py-GC-MS characterization of artists' paints and implications for conservation and art history

ANYL 411

Carrie Ann Brindle, cbrindle@getty.edu1, Tatiana Ausema, ausemat@si.edu2, and Michael Schilling, mschilling@getty.edu1. (1) Science Department, Getty Conservation Institute, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90049, (2) Conservation Department, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, MRC 350, PO BOX 37012, Washington, DC 20013
Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) are being applied to paint samples from a selection of Kenneth Noland paintings to determine whether oil or the acrylic solution n-butyl methacrylate was used as the binding medium. The results of this study will inform conservation treatments, which are specific to the medium. The results can also impact modern art history. In the 1950's and early 60's, Noland and his fellow Color Field painters helped shape Modernism in American painting by using newly developed acrylic solution paints in ingenious designs on unprimed canvas. Many presume that Noland's characteristic style was realized by using these new paints, and that he abruptly stopped using oil paints when introduced to acrylics. However, for the paintings Separate (1953), Inside (1958), Lake (1959), and Dusk (1963), discrepancies between macroscopic properties and documentation question these assumptions.

 

Analytical Approaches
1:30 PM-5:00 PM, Thursday, 30 March 2006 Georgia World Congress Center -- B215, Oral

Sci-Mix
8:00 PM-10:00 PM, Monday, 27 March 2006 Georgia World Congress Center -- Ex. Hall B4, Sci-Mix

Division of Analytical Chemistry

The 231st ACS National Meeting, Atlanta, GA, March 26-30, 2006