Hunter Museum of American Art

I would like to take this opportunity to dispel one of the great mysteries of the museum registrar’s job—condition reporting.

Every so often, Hunter Museum visitors might catch a glimpse of me or the other registrar, Elizabeth Le, wearing white gloves and peering very intently at a painting through a magnifying glass. Some people are curious enough to approach us and ask us what we are doing and why are we doing it. Most of the time, we're working on a condition report.

As registrars, it is our job to keep track of every piece of art in the museum and to carefully document any change in condition or damage that might occur. When doing this work, I prefer to use a lighted magnifying visor rather than a magnifying glass, which keeps my hands free but does make me look faintly like a coal miner. When we have an existing report to compare to, it is easier to document any new changes; but we also have to start from scratch quite often.

There are several steps to condition reporting. First, the different parts of a work of art are methodically inspected: the back, the frame, the liner, the glazing (glass or plexi) and finally the surface of the work. We focus on anything that looks out of place, such as a scrape, scratch, crack, chip, etc. When something is found, we document it by measuring the exact location and describing it in detail. Then we move on in a systematic manner until all areas are accounted for. If a painting is large, it is sometimes easier to view it in quadrants.

Condition reporting has its own set of cool terms: craquelure (cracks in the surface), accretion (droplet of foreign matter), cockling (a buckling in the surface), bloom (cloudiness in the varnish), void (unpainted area or it could be a loss), impasto (thick protruding applications of paint).

Two condition reports are required for every piece of art in a temporary exhibit—once when the show comes in and another one when the show closes. A very detailed condition report notebook comes with every show, which contains comments from every person who has looked at a work while it was traveling. We add our comments at the end.

You might ask what happens if a change is found in a work of art. This is something that does happen, however rarely, but must be acted upon immediately. Whether the object is a work belonging to the Hunter Museum or a work entrusted to us, the damage must be photographed, measured and described. The change in condition is reported to the person in charge: our curator, the art work's owner, or the exhibition contact. We strictly follow their instructions in dealing with the condition. They might want us to take the work off view, have a conservator survey the damage, or even pack and return the work if it doesn’t belong to the Hunter.

Stay tuned for my next blog on October 1 when I dispel another registration mystery.

Theresa Slowikowski, Hunter Museum registrar