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At Winterthur for the final two weeks of the program, students worked
on a painting and two dioramas, all damaged and in need of conservation
treatment. The dioramas, owned by Tuskegee University, were among more
than 30 that were made in 1940 to showcase events from African and
African American history.
Meaghan Hall, an art and business major from Fisk University, was
working one day on a diorama depicting an expedition to the North Pole
by African American explorer Matthew Henson and fellow explorer Robert
Peary. After cleaning the background, which she said initially had a
kind of yellowish film covering the surface, Hall was examining other
damage.
On the figure of Henson, the hood of his parka once had rabbit fur
trim, but only a few small tufts now remained. And the American flag the
explorers had been shown planting in the snow toppled over during
shipment and crumbled into a pile of small fragments of red, white and
blue fabric.
Were deciding the best way to repair it, Hall said. Ive learned
so much in such a short time doing this, and Ive learned how important
this kind of work is.
"Now I think about my own art: Whats going to happen to it in 50 years?
In addition to the dioramas, the students had the opportunity to work
on an oil painting by Jimmie Mosely of a wounded U.S. Marine during the
Korean War. The 41-by-59-inch canvas had apparently been stored upright
at one time when it was damaged by water, causing the paint to crack
and flake.
For Chanise Epps, who was awarded medals for her work under fire as
an Air Force photographer in Afghanistan in 2010, the painting was
especially compelling. Mosely painted it from a photograph by Life
magazine photojournalist David Douglas Duncan.