Hunter Museum of American Art

Normally, the artwork that you see in our galleries arrives at the museum much as it looks on display. Usually only sculpture or glass may need assembly.  In the case of our recent New York Cool exhibition, one of the large paintings, Kenneth Noland's Spread, needed to be folded in half. If packed normally, the painting would simply be too large to fit through most doorways, so special measures need to be taken.

After the show closed, the registrars, Michelle Wong from NYU and Theresa Slowikowski from the Hunter, closely inspected the canvas to ensure no damage had occurred during the exhibition. 

The painting was taken off the wall and laid face down on the floor on top of a protected surface so that the brackets which held together the two halves of the stretcher frame on the back of the painting could be removed. To reach the center of the painting, we had to improvise a platform out of an overturned table resting on two rolling carts.

After stapling protective plastic around the entire canvas, a crew was gathered to lift the painting, folding it over a large cardboard tube to prevent the canvas surface from creasing.  Brackets were screwed into place so that the two halves would remain rigid and not separate during shipment.

To learn more about the New York Cool exhibition check out the Grey Art Gallery.

John Thornbury
Exhibits Preparator