Conservation of a room: A treatment proposal for Mark Rothko's Harvard Murals

Abstract

A treatment with projected light for Mark Rothko's Harvard Murals (1962) is proposed. The group of five paintings on canvas has changed color due to the presence of a fugitive red pigment and excessive exposure to natural light in a room with large windows. For the conservation of Rothko's Harvard room, it is brought into context within his other commissions and environments. The original color of the works is determined by the digital restoration of contemporary photographs. With a camera projector system a compensation image is calculated that is projected onto the original canvas resulting in a restored color appearance. This approach of inpainting with light is compared with considerations of cleaning and inpainting in conventional conservation treatments. Overall lighting and architecture including the unusual wall color carefully chosen by Rothko play a key role in the treatment of the Mural cycle as an environment.

Keywords:

• Mark Rothko
• Harvard Murals
• Camera projector system
• Inpainting with light
• Conservation ethics
• Ektachrome
• Color science
• Computational photography

Acknowledgements

We thank Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Christina Rosenberger, and Mary Schneider Enriquez for art historical and curatorial insights in many discussions. We are also in great debt to Christopher Rothko and Kate Rothko Prizel who generously lent Panel Six of Mark Rothko's Harvard Murals. JS thanks Dan Kushesl for lending a vintage Kodak color checker. Photographs from 2012 of Mark Rothko's Harvard Murals were shot by Katya Kallsen. This work has been made possible in part through the generous support of the AXA Art Insurance Corporation, InFocus Corporation, the Bowes Family Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ezra and Lauren Merkin, Novartis International AG, Lief D. Rosenblatt, and the NBT Charitable Trust. Initial exhibition funding has been provided by the Graham Gund Exhibition Fund and the Rosenblatt Fund for Post-War American Art. Modern and contemporary art programs are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer Jr. Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums.