The Healing (of) Arts
Behind the scenes, Linda Nader makes old works look new again
Maybe it’s because of the paranoia of the dealers from whom they get most of their old or damaged paintings. Maybe it’s because they work in seclusion. Or maybe it’s because nobody really knows just what it is they do or how—so it’s a bit mystical, arcane, even alchemical. “Restorers are all very weird,” observes Linda Nader, who’s been restoring artworks, primarily by turn-of-the-century Western artists such as Walter Ufer, Gustave Baumann, and Ernest Blumenschein, for several years now. “We’re really behind-the-scenes people. We’re puppetmasters who don’t want to be seen.”
Operating out of an unmarked studio somewhere near Second Street, Nader (who’s loath to reveal her exact location) repairs works created on canvas and in wood, metal, stone, and other media, from every culture and time period. “I’ve gotten 500-year-old Buddhas that are filthy and black and there’ll be gold lacquer underneath,” she says. “That’s really exciting. They come back alive after you’re done.”
Like the other ten or so restorers in and around Santa Fe, she is often entrusted with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of dirty or damaged art. Her mission: to bring it back to its pristine, original condition. That’s no easy task, especially given that dealers and owners may have tried to wipe away a food stain with Windex or rub off a layer of dirt with acetone.
Before
“Usually you test a little section of the painting so you know how to proceed,” explains Nader. “I may have to test half a dozen things, and I start out with the least abrasive material and work my way up. But it’s creative, not tedious. You just have to stay focused. As focused as the artist who painted it.”
About 90 percent of Nader’s business comes from dealers of historic Western art, the other ten comes from collectors and galleries. But she won’t get any more specific about the pieces she’s worked on. As she explains it, art dealers expect discretion from restorers because they don’t want word of what they have to get out to other dealers. Another reason for the secrecy—one that Nader doesn’t mention—may be that dealers would prefer to keep restoration details about certain pieces of art on the down-low.
Nader, who studied graphic design at Ohio’s Columbus College of Art and Design, worked as a graphic designer and a photographer before moving to Santa Fe. She fell into her unique line of work here after responding to an ad seeking an apprentice for a local restorer. After two years on the job, she was eager to take her restoration skills further. But she discovered there are no schools for such study in the U.S. “So I found a program in Italy—and it was totally life-changing,” says Nader. “I came back with this confidence, the confidence to go out on my own. All my experience came together for this one thing. My love of history and art history, my love of antiques, my background in graphic design.”
After
Never trained in any scientific or CSI-like way, Nader nevertheless knows from experience what substances can be used to clean a piece of art without damaging it. “There are pieces that come in and I start drooling because I can’t wait to get at them, because I know how to approach it,” she says. “I can take off layers and layers of dirt and you see what it was like the day Ufer or [Victor] Higgins first painted it. Or I can make a really huge hole or tear in the canvas disappear.”
Removing dirt, smoke, food, or other odd debris is only half the job. “Restorers want to put a piece back to where it’s perfect, as perfect as it was before it got damaged or started to age,” says Nader. That means repainting what’s been lost or what has faded over time, a process known as inpainting.
Whereas restorers aim to make an old piece of art look new again, conservators—most all of whom work in museums—believe that any retouching or repair on a work of art should be clearly visible and obvious to the observer. “Museums think what we do is terrible,” sighs Nader, who doesn’t really side with one camp or the other. “But if I can clean a painting to where it looked like Blumenschein originally, that’s great. Or if I can inpaint it, great. I don’t think I’m destroying the value or taking the place of these artists or that I’ve intruded into what they’ve made. I wouldn’t want something on my wall with part of it missing.”
Most works that have been cleaned or restored tend to increase in value, yet the restorer’s lot remains somewhat hush-hush. “It’s a curious business,” says Nader. “It’s all word of mouth. People ask me, Why don’t you advertise? Because I’d get grandmothers calling asking me to touch up their kitty-cat pictures. No one’s going to call with a $500,000 painting after seeing an ad. So it’s still a bit of a secret society—in a weird way.” Weird, maybe. But clean weird, not dirty weird.
