NEW YORK, NY.- Through their matching funds program,
Eli Wilner & Company has helped museums and other non-profit institutions across the country bring important reframing and frame restoration projects to completion. This is a benefit to the value of the overall collection and the general public’s greater enjoyment and understanding of the cultural objects.
During the spring and summer of 2019, the Wilner studio artisans have undertaken projects for the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Lafayette Art Galleries & Collections at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, and the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It should be noted, that all three of these institutions are return clients to Eli Wilner & Company.
For Eskenazi, they have created historically-appropriate replicas for two late 15th century German altarpiece wings. Together with the museum curatorial staff, research was done to determine the best approach. Ultimately it was decided to work from a combination of documentary photographs along with shapes and surfaces from period frames within the Wilner collection. These frames will be unveiled later this fall, when the museum reopens to the public, after a major renovation and gallery reinstallation, along with four other artworks in different areas of the collection that Wilner reframed in 2018.
Meanwhile, the projects for Krannert and Lafayette were both complex restorations of elaborate 18th and 19th Century carved and gilded frames, which house paintings that are prominent within their respective collections. The Wilner team has noticed an increased demand and interest towards the investment for restoration of period frames. They are extremely grateful that doing these museum projects enables them to share the complex labor-intensive processes with the greater public, who in turn are more likely to appreciate the efforts, or possible even contribute financially towards an institution’s conservation budget. Previously, these in-house budgets were limited towards the conservation of paintings, but increasingly efforts are being made to take the frames into consideration as well, especially if they are original to the artworks they surround. This appreciation of framing is further evidenced by the Historic Charleston Foundation recently honoring Eli Wilner & Company with a Samuel Gaillard Stoney Conservation Craftsmanship Award, for its work in historic frame conservation.
The growing awareness to the importance of frames in museums has extended to Wilner’s loyal private clientele, who have also been presenting the firm with a wider array of re-framing and restoration projects for consideration. Many of these projects are beyond the more typical historical framing of paintings that Eli Wilner & Company is predominantly recognized for. For example, they recently were tasked with restoring an elaborate gilded “trophy frame” that contains a valuable 18th century presidential document. On another occasion, a client with a great passion for early 20th American frames, had Wilner resize a rare frame from that time period to pair with a painting they were commissioning from a Chinese contemporary artist. The decisions on these projects are always a collaboration with the client in every capacity.
Eli Wilner & Company is looking forward to the fall art season and all the new projects that will present themselves. Museums of all sizes are highly encouraged to inquire about matching funds for the framing of important paintings or the restoration of important period frames.
