Blue Poles Cleanup

[lloydslights]

Jackson Pollock's 1952 painting Blue Poles has been temporarily taken off display at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra to undergo cleaning.

Staff at the gallery will spend the next four weeks carefully dusting the famous masterpiece.

But it is not only dust which builds up.

"Blue poles and all the paintings in the collection get dusted really regularly by our conservation staff before the gallery opens in the morning," Mr Worrall said.

"But that doesn't give us time to clean off the things people sneeze or cough onto paintings in the middle of winter and other things you'd be horrified to see that can build up on the surface of the painting.

"This gives the guys the chance to put on their microscope screens and look at it really carefully with their torches and go through and clean every piece of dust and dirt off the surface of the painting.

"http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-14/blue-poles-by-jackson-pollock-set-for-face-lift-nga/6853514

It was the $1.3m pricetag in 1973 that brought a choking cough to some people's throat.  

Now reported to be valued at between $20m-$100m.

DEB

[imastawka]

I have an oil painting that has 50+ years of grime

Google tells me that spit and cotton buds is the way to go

Spoiler

 

Buy several cotton swabs. Using your spit to clean a work of art might seem both crazy and profane, but it's a method museum curators around the world use. Saliva has enough enzymes to break down dirt and grime, but not so much that it will damage the paint. It'll take a lot of cotton swabs, though, so stock up with a full box.

• Be aware that this method takes some patience — ask a museum intern how many hours it can take to clean a large painting this way. (Hint: It's more than 2.) But if you want to meticulously clean your painting with almost zero risk of damage to the oils, this is the way to go.

Dunno how Jackson would feel about people spitting on his masterpiece though

[lloydslights]

Spit on the edge of Mum's hankie removed some grime in the past.  

But we were poles apart in the desire of its use.

DEB

[ecar3483]

$1.3 million was a lot of money, back then. You could buy a Cortina for $700 back then. Actually, come to think of it, you could buy a Cortina for $700, now, so I suppose it's not much of a price comparison.

Appreciation of something of the order of $20 to 100 million is nothing to spit at., in fact I daresay there'd be collectors who'd be salivating at the idea of picking up for that kind of money, to the point where you'd probably have to swab the decks.

I should stop now, before I start making really silly puns.