Launch of the first international study project on paintings by Jackson Pollock
Venice, June 11th, 2013. Today is the first day of a research project on eleven paintings by Jackson Pollock in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. In-depth scientific investigation is being conducted on these works, several of which are acknowledged masterpieces.
Peggy Guggenheim considered her support of Pollock as the most important achievement of her career as art dealer and collector. She acquired numerous paintings for her personal collection, for sale and for donation to museums, including the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome and the Museum of Art in Tel Aviv. In 1950 Peggy organised Pollock’s first exhibition in Europe in the Ala Napoleonica of the Correr Museum in Piazza San Marco in Venice. For all these reasons, the works that Peggy chose to keep for her own collection have acquired a special historic importance.
An international team of experts is currently at work in the Venetian museum. In addition to the staff of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, curators, conservators and scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Seattle Art Museum, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the Institute of Molecular Sciences and Technologies, the National Institute of Optics (INO) of the National Research Council (CNR), in Florence and Perugia, and the SMAArt Center of Perugia are all participating in this project. The research is coordinated by Luciano Pensabene Buemi, conservator of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and by Carol Stringari, Deputy Director and Chief Conservator of the Guggenheim Museum, New York.
During this first phase, all eleven works from the collection will be examined with non-invasive techniques by technicians of the mobile laboratory MOLAB (CNR-ISTM, SMAArt, INO - CNR) and the Laboratory of Diagnostics of Spoleto. Costanza Miliani, coordinator of MOLAB, explained: “The MOLAB employs state of the art equipment for precise elemental (X-ray fluorescence) and molecular (Raman spectroscopy, FTIR, UV-VIS fluorescence) analysis, both punctual and imaging, of pigments and binding mediums through multispectral reflectography VIS-NIR, with the goal of identifying the artist’s technique and the state of conservation of the works.”