Art Conservation

Caroline K. Keck, 99, a pioneer in art conservation who wrote several important books in the field, died Dec. 17 at her home in Cooperstown, N.Y., the New York Times reported Tuesday. The cause of death was not announced. According to the Times, Keck and her husband, Sheldon, were instrumental in bringing the ancient craft of art restoration into the modern era using scientific research, modern technology and shared methodological standards. The Kecks also insisted on precise documentation of restoration efforts and that everything done to a piece of art be easily and fully reversible.

"America Tropical" must be Los Angeles' most famous invisible artwork. Born in drama and buried in anger, Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros' monumental mural on Olvera Street has been a cause célèbre for decades. Siqueiros was commissioned to paint the 18-by-80-foot fresco in 1932 as a decoration for a rooftop beer garden, but it disappeared behind whitewash amid a controversy over its central image: a Mexican Indian lashed to a double cross with an American eagle proudly perched above him, wings spread.

"America Tropical" must be Los Angeles' most famous invisible artwork. Born in drama and buried in anger, Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros' monumental mural on Olvera Street has been a cause célèbre for decades. Siqueiros was commissioned to paint the 18-by-80-foot fresco in 1932 as a decoration for a rooftop beer garden, but it disappeared behind whitewash amid a controversy over its central image: a Mexican Indian lashed to a double cross with an American eagle proudly perched above him, wings spread.

Thousands of years ago humans first inscribed themselves on the landscape of California's eastern flank. Indians scratched a fantastic cosmos of circles and squiggles on the dark desert rock in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Photographer Nolan Nitschke captures this geological canvas in the broad foreground, while a fiery sunset over the snowy mountains competes for attention - the grandeur of art and nature holding each other in balance. The Eastern Sierra, which stretches from the Tehachapi Pass north of Los Angeles for some 400 miles to Lake Tahoe, is a scenic wonderland where high desert meets even higher mountains.

The J. Paul Getty Trust, the visual art world's ultimate one-percenter with about $8 billion in net assets, has decided that it can't get by on investment income alone and will begin raising money in earnest to pay for special projects. J. Timothy Child, a fundraiser for the University of Chicago since 1989, will assume the newly created position of vice president of institutional advancement on June 11 - the first time in its 30-year history that the Getty has hired a chief fundraiser.

PUT A head on that statue, no! Not if it is to become an ethical art conservation ("A Skull Session Over a Statue," by Sean Mitchell, Aug. 10). Jerry Podany of the Getty knows that. I heard professional conservators in 1960 say: "Art conservation ends when conjecture begins." Mitchell clearly spells out the conjecture -- "Is it a woman or man?" No guesses are allowed, and that was the determination of the art conservators. Good for them and Mitchell. Bud Goldstone Westchester

Pieter Meyers, senior research chemist at the County Museum of Art, has been appointed head of the museum's state-of-the-art conservation department. Effective June 1, Meyers will succeed William R. Leisher, who has accepted a new position as chief of the Art Institute of Chicago's conservation program. Meyers has been a museum conservator for 20 years, serving as senior research chemist in charge of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's research laboratory for 11 years before coming to Los Angeles.

As a child, Kathleen Wigglesworth had a recurring dream. In it she was an angel with a magic wand, whose earthly job was to make things beautiful. Young Wigglesworth believed she'd one day become an artist or even an art teacher. But this was not to be. Her mother discouraged such impractical vocations, declaring secretarial work a far better choice, Wigglesworth recounts today.

Ancient Egyptians didn't simply bury their rulers. They sent them off to the underworld with everything a royal personage could desire for a luxurious afterlife. Queen Nefertari, the favorite wife of Rameses II, was particularly well provided for. Laid to rest more than 3,200 years ago in what is probably the most beautifully painted New Kingdom tomb in Egypt, she was surrounded by a sumptuous array of food, clothing, jewelry, statuary, furnishings and ceremonial trappings.

In 17th century Flanders, Peter Paul Rubens did conservation work on his own paintings with the tools of his day: oil paints and a brush. Masterpieces by Rubens and Rembrandt are still being restored in the late 20th century, but now the task is entrusted to trained conservators using high-tech methods that include irradiating canvases with nuclear particles to create X-ray film that shows each discrete stage in the artist's painting process.

The J. Paul Getty Trust, the visual art world's ultimate one-percenter with about $8 billion in net assets, has decided that it can't get by on investment income alone and will begin raising money in earnest to pay for special projects. J. Timothy Child, a fundraiser for the University of Chicago since 1989, will assume the newly created position of vice president of institutional advancement on June 11 - the first time in its 30-year history that the Getty has hired a chief fundraiser.

PUT A head on that statue, no! Not if it is to become an ethical art conservation ("A Skull Session Over a Statue," by Sean Mitchell, Aug. 10). Jerry Podany of the Getty knows that. I heard professional conservators in 1960 say: "Art conservation ends when conjecture begins." Mitchell clearly spells out the conjecture -- "Is it a woman or man?" No guesses are allowed, and that was the determination of the art conservators. Good for them and Mitchell. Bud Goldstone Westchester

Joe Ames, 86, the deep-voiced anchor and eldest member of the 1950s hit singing group the Ames Brothers, died Dec. 22 at a hospital near Mainz, Germany, after suffering a heart attack, his daughter Jo-Ellen Ames told the Associated Press. Ames and his brothers Ed, Gene and Vic were one of the most popular quartets in the decades before the advent of rock 'n' roll.

Caroline K. Keck, 99, a pioneer in art conservation who wrote several important books in the field, died Dec. 17 at her home in Cooperstown, N.Y., the New York Times reported Tuesday. The cause of death was not announced. According to the Times, Keck and her husband, Sheldon, were instrumental in bringing the ancient craft of art restoration into the modern era using scientific research, modern technology and shared methodological standards. The Kecks also insisted on precise documentation of restoration efforts and that everything done to a piece of art be easily and fully reversible.

"The Painter's Voice: The Restoration of Two Master Paintings," Oscar-winning director William Friedkin's documentary film about the conservation of two animal portraits currently drawing crowds at the J. Paul Getty Museum, will air exclusively on KCET Monday at 9 p.m.

SUNRISE is spectacular public theater on Mt. Sinai. Hours before dawn, tourists and pilgrims -- on foot or camel -- start a trek to the 7,349-foot peak, determined to get there before the show begins. When the sun finally makes its appearance, the audience at the pinnacle breaks into applause or bursts into song. Oohs and ahs accompany the second act, when light transforms the sky into an ethereal, golden hemisphere and the land far below into a craggy moonscape.

It was an ugly and inappropriate nose, a bad Jimmy Durante appendage attached by some well-meaning latter-day restorer to an otherwise graceful Egyptian stone head. But conservators at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, confronted with the adulterated statue, did not immediately restore the work to its original state. Restore is a dirty word around the conservation lab.

Today's antiques owner--whether of museum-quality works, beloved heirlooms or mere swap-meet finds--tends to be savvier about value than ever before, thanks in large part to the popularity of public television's "Antiques Roadshow." But questions still remain: What to do if a piece of porcelain is cracked or an antique table acquires water spots? Should a missing part be replaced? How visible should repair work be?

IN the late 1980s, Pamela Kramlich saw a work of video art by Peter Fischli and David Weiss titled "The Way Things Go." The 30-minute piece shows a perpetual-motion machine built by the artists: A car propelled by a kind of firecracker bumps into a bowling ball, which hits a piece of cardboard, which somehow leads to the ignition of a flammable substance in a saucepot -- and on and on. Kramlich loved it.

The only old things in the Getty Villa's graduate student laboratories are the artworks. The six students -- one from Turkey, the others from the east and west coasts of the U.S. -- are just embarking on their careers. They are the first to enroll in a new master's degree program in archeological and ethnographic conservation offered by the Cotsen Institute of Archeology at UCLA and the J. Paul Getty Trust.