Conservation Assessment to Preserve Paintings Collections

FAIN: PG-51701-12

South Side Community Art Center (Chicago, IL 60653-1513)
Faheem Majeed (Project Director: May 2011 to April 2014)

The hiring of a consultant to conduct a preservation assessment of a collection of 300 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper produced by artists who frequented the Works Progress Administration community art center in South Side Chicago from its founding in 1940 through the present. The collection includes works by prominent African American artists Ralph Arnold, Margaret Burroughs, Jeff Donaldson, Richard Hunt, Barbara Jones-Hogu, and Archibald Motley.

The South Side Community Art Center possesses a major collection of nearly 300 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, largely by black Chicago artists from the 1930s to the present, with particular strengths in the 1940s and 1960-70s. The Center is in the process of completing renovations to provide better conditions for preservation of these works, which have until recently received inadequate attention; the Center was not originally a collecting institution. The artworks now require evaluation to develop a plan for continued preservation protocols and for conservation treatment where needed. If awarded a grant, the Center will hire a consultant, Kelly Keegan, to conduct a condition assessment of all the paintings in its collection (around 200 of the ca. 300 total artworks). She will provide a basic evaluation of their technique, condition, and stability; give attention where possible to works on paper and objects; and offer additional advice on preservation of all works.