Assessment of Pastel Drawings in the Leo Baeck Art Collection

FAIN: PG-50163-07

Leo Baeck Institute, Inc. (New York, NY 10021-3502)
Renata Stein (Project Director: May 2006 to November 2008)

A conservation assessment of 150 pastel drawings, dating from the 18th century, documenting German-Jewish life and culture.

This project addresses the fragile condition of pastel artworks in the art department of the Leo Baeck Institute (LBI). LBI is a research, study, and lecture center presenting the most comprehensive documentation of the history of German-speaking Jewry. The LBI Art Collection consists of some 5,500 prints, drawings, and watercolors, 250 oil paintings and about 200 sculptures and ritual objects. The principal activities of the art department are thematic exhibitions and loans of artwork to other exhibiting institutions. This proposal concerns the 150 pastels in the collection. Pastel is a beautifully colorful art medium, but fragile even in the best circumstances. The pastels in the collection, spanning two centuries, arrived in widely varying conditions. The project will engage the expertise of an art conservator with a specialty in works on paper, to assess the condition of each pastel and to make recommendations about the urgency of conservation and proposed treatments.