AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

Rainy Day Canapé is one of a small subset of three-dimensional work in the catalog of the artist, Dorothea Tanning. She had a long and varied career as an American artist whose work spanned seven decades and crossed media boundaries. While Tanning is best known for her Surrealist paintings, her collective works include commercial illustrations, painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, set design, costume design, fiction, and poetry. Between 1965 and 1982, Tanning created 15 individual sculptures and one room installation that included an additional 6 sculptures. The sculptures are all cloth covered; she used found objects and stuffing to achieve her intended forms.Rainy Day Canapé is one such object and has been in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) since 2002 (accession number 2002-86-1).

The PMA’s sculpture was made in 1970 and features intertwined body parts emerging from the upholstery of a loveseat. The sculpture’s materials are listed in the PMA records as upholstered wood sofa with wool, polyester, and rayon plainweave cover, wool batting, cardboard, and ping-pong balls. However, in 2018, a small area of degraded polyurethane foam was discovered in the form of powder emerging from a gap in the seam of the tweed cover near the bust of the reclining figure. This was an interesting and unexpected find as Tanning was not known to have used polyurethane in her work. However, due to the nature of the sculpture’s construction, identifying the internal materials and their various conditions would be difficult and invasive. Furthermore, Tanning has been quoted saying that she felt these cloth sculptures should have the lifespan of an ill person. How does the conservator/curator/institution tasked with preserving such works for future generations navigate the ethical challenge of such a specific artist’s wish, especially when faced with the knowledge that the work features a rapidly degrading material that has the potential to fundamentally change the form of the sculpture?

It became clear that this work required focused attention to plan for its future. Rainy Day Canapé has been requested for loan many times since it was acquired by the museum in 2002, and the 2019 retrospective of Tanning’s work held at two popular museums in Europe will only increase her visibility and interest in her sculpture. By conducting extensive object examination and multiple forms of documentation, literature review, personal interviews, and archives research a more in depth understanding of the complex nature of this work and the artist was gained. Is there a way to honor the artist’s wishes/expectations while also making the sculpture available to both present and future audiences? This presentation will discuss Tanning, Rainy Day Canapé, and the actions and recommendations necessary to manage these seemingly conflicting goals.