Friends visited the National Library on 14 April for a curator talk on the exhibition ‘Future Proof: Paintings in Perpetuit‘y’.
Jennifer Cauchi, Team Leader, Conservation at the National Library and Archives New Zealand gave Friends an excellent talk on the project to conserve oil paintings in the Turnbull Library collection, so that paintings such as those selected remain research resources as one part of Aotearoa’s historical record.
The exhibition displayed the results to date of a multi-year conservation project. As co-curator of the exhibition, Jennifer introduced the works and some of the stories behind the paintings, shared insights into why these significant oil paintings were selected for conservation and described the preservation treatments. It was fascinating to see the impact of conservation in the before and after images, especially on the digital display.