The Art Conservation Project preserves cultural
treasures from around the world and highlights the
crucial need for conservation.
Bank of America Art Conservation Project
Works of art can provide a lasting reflection of peoples and cultures, but, over time, they are subject to
deterioration or even loss. The Bank of America Art Conservation Project provides grants to nonprofit museums
throughout the world to conserve historically or culturally significant works of art that are in danger of
degeneration. The program, introduced in 2010 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has contributed to the
conservation of works ranging from Winged Victory of Samothrace at the Louvre to Ndebele beaded aprons
at the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg.
In 2012 the program has expanded to the Americas, Asia and Australia, with conservation projects in 19 global
markets. Among the projects receiving grants this year are an important collection of Diego Rivera’s mural
sketches at the Anahuacalli Museum; five paintings by Marc Chagall at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and Picasso’s
Woman Ironing at the Guggenheim. Beyond funding the conservation of crucial works of art, the Art Conservation
Project is promoting scholarship and training. At the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and
Heritage, for example, a project to be executed in partnership with the U.S. Department of State will restore the
famous Nimrud Ivories and, at the same time, provide training for Iraq’s burgeoning conservation professionals.
Uraritan Bracelets, 9th—7th century B.C.
Rezan Has Museum, Istanbul
Uraritan Jewelry Collection
Rezan Has Museum's Urartian jewelry collection is the most comprehensive of its kind in
Turkey. It contains nearly 1,000 items, including hairpins, diadems, hair coils, earrings,
rings, necklaces, medallions, pectorals, amulets, armlets, bracelets, anklets, fibulæ and
buttons. Many of the items are decorated with religious or magical motifs, reflecting the
mystical thoughts, religious beliefs and traditions of Urartian society.
Urartu was the northern neighbor and rival of the Assyrian Empire from the ninth to
seventh centuries B.C. It had disappeared before 600 B.C., possibly destroyed due to raids
by horse-borne warriors known to the Greeks as Scythians, associated with the Medes from
western Iran.
Items of clothing and jewelry have always provided an indication of social status, especially
in societies shaped by religion. It is also likely that the preponderance of religious
decorations on Urartian jewelry reveals an ancient belief that such representations held
divine power to protect the wearer from evil and to bring luck, prosperity and happiness.
Conservation of items in this collection will include cleaning, repairing cracks, finishing,
stabilization and overall preservation.
El hombre en el cruce de los caminos
(Man at the Crossroads), 1933
Charcoal on kraft paper
501 × 323 cm (197" × 127")
© 2012 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, Mexico City
Diego Rivera, (Mexican, 1886—1957)
The Anahuacalli Museum holds an important collection of 17 of
Diego Rivera’s sketches for his murals; four are under conservation
through the Art Conservation Project. Between 1922 and 1957, Rivera
painted murals throughout Mexico, as well as in San Francisco, Detroit
and New York City. His large wall works helped to establish the
Mexican Mural Renaissance.
Among the sketches in the collection are those for the controversial
Man at the Crossroads, which the painter began for Rockefeller
Center in 1933; and a sketch for Water, Origin of Life on Earth, which portrays the
builders and engineers of the Dolores Waterworks in Mexico City.
All of these sketches have unique historical value, as they reveal not
only the creative process of one of the most prominent muralists in
Mexico and the world, but also key moments of the political and social
environment that existed during Rivera's lifetime. The drawings in the
Anahuacalli Museum’s collection that have the most severe structural
damage are being restored.
Woman Ironing (La repasseuse), 1904
Oil on canvas
116.2 × 73 cm (45¾" × 28¾")
© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)
Perhaps no other artist in the early twentieth century depicted the plight of the disenfranchised
with more sensitivity or emotion than Pablo Picasso. Woman Ironing (La repasseuse), Spring 1904,
painted during his pivotal Blue Period (1901–04), is recognized as one of Picasso’s quintessential
images of the working poor.
A study of Woman Ironing completed in 1989 revealed the presence of an earlier painting, an apparent
portrait of a man, beneath the surface of this Blue Period composition. Limited access to sophisticated
technology has impeded subsequent research on the underlying portrait, until now. The current project will
involve a comprehensive study of the earlier portrait, incorporating the most advanced imaging techniques,
scientific analysis, historical research and comparative viewings of related works in an effort to identify
the male subject and enhance existing scholarship on Picasso’s working methods and materials. Conservation
treatment of the painting is another central component of the project and will include overall cleaning and
editing of old and mismatched restorations.