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Posts Tagged ‘restoration’

Restoring a Magnificent Synagogue

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I liked this story by Penny Schwartz from the Sunday Globe. It’s about the painstaking work of restoring a magnificent synagogue built in the 17th and 18th centuries and destroyed by the Nazis in WW II.

“For the last 10 years, Laura and Rick Brown have been immersed in the art and architecture of Poland’s historic Gwozdziec synagogue. …

“Now, after a decade of research and building small-scale models, the Browns and their international team of 300 carpenters, artists, and students have created a nearly full-scale replica of the the triple-tiered roof and intricately painted ceiling and cupola of the Gwozdziec synagogue, considered one of the most magnificent, well-documented of the wooden synagogues of the era. …

“ ‘They really have done something miraculous,’ said Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, professor of performance studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, who was tapped to lead the museum’s exhibit development team. …

“The Browns’ approach to building, using traditional tools and techniques dating back to the time the synagogue was built, offered something beyond having a copy of the synagogue roof built as a prop, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said. …

“Both sculptors, the Browns came to the Gwozdziec project as founders and directors of Handshouse Studio, an educational nonprofit in Norwell [Massachusetts] that replicates historic objects using authentic methods. …

“Looking back on the journey, Laura and Rick say they are humbled by the hundreds of people, including many MassArt students and graduates, who have given so much time to this project.

“They are grateful to MassArt for allowing them the flexibility to create courses designed for the project including a series of Lost Historic Paintings’ classes analyzing and replicating quarter-scale, then half-scale models of the Gwozdziec synagogue ceiling panels.

“The 85 percent scale replica represents more than the grandeur of a long ago synagogue, Laura said. ‘This object speaks to a very painful history that is still very alive,’ she said.” More.

Photo: Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
Artist Rick and Laura Brown at their studio in Hanover, Massachusetts.

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Harlem Murals Restored

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 26, 2012| 4 Comments »

I’m happy to see some long-neglected murals being restored in Harlem. Robin Pogrebin has the story in the NY Times:

“When the Works Progress Administration [WPA] commissioned murals for Harlem Hospital Center in 1936, it easily approved the sketches submitted by seven artists, which depicted black people at work and at play throughout history. The hospital, however, objected, saying four of the sketches focused too much on ‘Negro’ subject matter … .

“Protesters rallied around the art, though, lodging complaints as high as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the murals ultimately prevailed.

“Over the years, those wall paintings deteriorated or were obscured by plaster. Now they have been restored and brought front and center as part of a new, $325 million patient pavilion for the hospital, on Lenox Avenue at 135th Street that will be unveiled on Sept. 27. …

“The artists — the last of whom, Georgette Seabrooke, died last year — were not well known and their murals portrayed ordinary people going about their daily lives. Vertis Hayes’s ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ panel traces the African diaspora from 18th-century African village life to slavery in America to 20th-century freedom; from agrarian struggles in the South to professional success in the industrialized North.” More.

The WPA cost money, but it put a lot of people to work. And look at all the great things that were created! I especially love the idea that unemployed people were paid to paint murals, write and produce plays, interview ordinary Americans for the National Archives, and record folk music. I know it was a stressful time, but thinking about the art makes me almost nostalgic.

 

Photograph: Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Elizabeth Kolligs works on restoring Vertis Hayes’s “Pursuit of Happiness” at Harlem Hospital.

 

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