AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

The husband-and-wife duo Charles and Ray Eames are some of the most influential designers of the 20th century. The Eames’ designs, organic and inspired, softened industrial materials, bringing them into the homes of a wide consumer base. While they experimented and worked with a range of materials, they are particularly known for their pioneering use of molded plywood. Released in 1946, the FSW (folding screen in wood) exemplifies the Eames’ design philosophy.

The FSW in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern and contemporary collection is composed of six molded plywood segments joined in sequence with woven hinges. The plywood segments are veneered with mahogany and have a bell curve-shaped profile. Fully extended, the screen measures 58 ½ in long and 68 in tall.

Pieces of furniture are enmeshed in the events of daily life that occur around them, capturing records of those activities in the form of wear from regular use, or scratches made by young children and stains from a spilled drink. The Eames FSW is a particularly dynamic object, meant to be moved, opened and closed, and repositioned in endless configurations. The Met’s screen bears the markings of an actively used domestic object, including home repairs likely made with materials the original owner had on hand.

In a museum context, the purpose of The Met’s FSW has changed. It is no longer a specific screen in the home of a specific family—it has become an archetypal example of a design object. Evidence of the screen’s previous life now distracts from its most important attributes, chiefly form and materiality. The surfaces of the Met’s FSW exhibited deep scratches in the finish as well as fourteen patches of overpaint that starkly contrasted with their surroundings. Two sections of one of the woven hinges had detached from their housings.

This paper will detail the treatment of The Met’s FSW, completed as part of the author’s 3rd year graduate internship. Rather than focus on specific outcomes, it will describe the decision-making process that guided the treatment. This process was complicated by the screen’s finish, which was identified as containing cellulose nitrate using the diphenylamine spot test. Working within the limitations imposed by the sensitive finish, retouching using Maimeri Ketonic Resin Colours with ShellSol D38 was ultimately decided to be the best course of action for addressing the overpainted patches. The scratches in the finish were re-saturated with 20% Plexigum PQ611 in Shellsol D38 and the woven hinge resecured with Lascaux 498 HV. With this paper I hope to illustrate the challenging decisions involved in treating a consumer object that has undergone changes both intentional and incidental.