Paintings Conservation:
The paintings conservation section of the Cleveland area fine arts conservation center McKay Lodge Art Conservation Laboratory has had a heavy volume of paintings conservation projects from area museums and collectors over the past five years, particularly from the Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio regional areas.
Here is a gallery of some of the more challenging pictures recently conserved in our paintings conservation lab, challenging due to their age and associated issues and/or their importance. The Masters and the “schools” should be easily recognized in this group by some.
Conservator of Paintings, Murals and Polychrome Surfaces, Stefan Dedecek was the chief conservator for all of these projects.
Paintings conservation has been a foundation service provided by McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory since the founding of the company by Robert Lodge in 1989 (incorporated in 1990). Robert Lodge was a paintings conservator at the Intermuseum Conservation Laboratory (ICA) for six years prior to founding his own company and was McKay Lodge Conservation’s only paintings conservator for a time.
The initial workload of paintings conservation from the clients who followed him was too heavy for Lodge alone. He was shortly joined by a second paintings conservator, C. Anik Morrow. After receiving her degree in paintings conservation at the University of Florence and working as a conservator in Canada, Anik joined McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory as a paintings conservator. Subsequently, she pursued a degree in law and succeeded! She is now a barrister specializing in criminal, constitutional and administrative law at Morrow Barristers in Toronto, Canada.
Stefan Dedecek, initially trained in Europe in polychromed art and paintings and acquired substantial experience in Europe in conservation. Subsequently he received his masters degree in art conservation in the U.S., completing his education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York City under the master conservator and head of the MET’s conservation department, Hubert von Sonnenberg, who passed away at the age of 76 in July 2004.
The hiring of trained conservators freed Lodge up to take on running the company while still providing high-quality conservation services on all manner of works of art.
