Oliver Brothers Fine Art Restoration

Oliver Brothers Fine Art Restoration and Conservation is the longest continuously operating art restoration

Art restoration

Art restoration is related to art conservation. Restoration is a process that attempts to return the work of art to some previous state that the restorer imagines was the "original". This was commonly done in the past...

establishment in the United States. The Olivers and those who followed them restored and conserved paintings, works on paper, icons, murals, sculpture, gilded objects, and antique and contemporary picture frames for private collectors, museums, art dealers, auction houses, galleries, corporations, universities, historical societies, libraries, insurance companies, architects and interior designers.

Origins

Oliver Brothers was the first and is the oldest fine art restoration company in United States. Its founder, James Oliver, was trained as an art restorer in his native Scotland. With his son George, he started his own restoration business in New York City in 1850. Throughout the nineteenth century, clients included The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, art dealers Samuel Putnam Avery

Samuel Putnam Avery

Samuel Putnam Avery was an American connoisseur and dealer in art. He was born in New York City where he studied engraving and was extensively employed by leading publishers. He began business as a dealer in art in 1865. In 1867 Mr. Avery was appointed commissioner in charge of the American art...

and M. Knoedler & Co., and restaurateur Lorenzo Delmonico. In the late 1860s, George Oliver moved to Boston, Mass., where he opened a second art restoration shop. In time, the New York location was closed.

Early 20th Century- Innovation

George’s two sons, George T. ("Taylor") and Frederick Oliver, eventually entered and took over the family business. It is these two brothers, grandsons of founder James, to whom the name "Oliver Brothers" refers. Taylor achieved considerable success creating innovative techniques for the restoration of art works. He perfected several procedures for removing surface blemishes and transferring paintings on canvasses with defective supports. In the 1920s, he transformed the field of art restoration by inventing the vacuum hot table for relining paintings, which he patented in 1937
- U.S. Patent# 2,073,802.. The vacuum hot table remains industry standard today, and is considered an essential piece of equipment for all restorers and conservators of paintings on textile supports. Taylor's prototype table, which he designed and constructed, remained in operation at Oliver Brothers until the early 2000s.

Second half of 20th Century- Current

In 1961, the Olivers sold the business to Carroll Wales (1917-2007) and Constantine Tsaousis (1924-1987), both of whom had previously restored religious art in churches in the eastern Mediterranean. Notable domestic restorations of Wales and Tsaousis include Arshile Gorky's murals in Newark Airport in 1977 and the Spanish medieval art collection of the Deering family from 1971 through 1982. Mr. Wales and Mr. Tsaousis have restored and conserved numerous artworks by the Word’s most famous artists including Annibale Caracci, John Singleton Copley, Francisco Goya, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Gilbert Stuart and Rembrandt Van Rain, to name a few. In 1986, Peter Tysver, an Oliver Brothers apprentice since 1968, bought the business; in 2004, Gregory Bishop, who had been training at Oliver Brothers since 1990, became a partner.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.