Due to unusual circumstances, this Frederick Fursman (1874 – 1943) portrait had a foreshortened stretcher bar. This gave the top-left of the portrait, where there is a painting in the painting, cropped dimensions and unfortunately part of the woman was folded back and lost from view. The portrait had been like that for some time, and the wear and tear of the stretcher bar caused major areas of loss. In-painting was necessary to restore the top margin, and a new stretcher bar was prepared, one that matched the dimensions of the painting. We also restored the frame, using casts to in-fill lost ornamentation. This is a wonderful, introspective portrait, and now its scope is back to how the artist intended it.

A painter and teacher, Frederick Fursman (1874 – 1943) was born in El Paso, Illinois and studied in Paris at the Academy Julian and in Chicago at the Art Institute. Early in his career, he painted in France in an impressionist style, depicting the landscape of Brittany and figures in that landscape.

In 1910, he and fellow artist Walter Marshall Clute founded a summer school of painting in Saugatuck, Michigan, which would later become Ox-Bow. It was to draw inspiration from the Smith Academy and the Academe Julian, encouraging the bohemian social life of Brittany and the literary soirées of the evening clubs in Chicago. He explained to a reporter in 1930, “We found the spot one day by chance as we walked along the river and cut through the woods to the lagoon. That was in 1910. Some of my pupils at the Art Institute had been working in a summer class at Sauguatuck with Walter Clute and me for several years…I found the place as charming as its name, and this spot, close to the village and yet quite apart from it…was ideal for our purpose. The Inn was already operating. The oldest part of the present building had once been an Indian fur-trading post. Later, it had served as a lumberjack’s hotel. When the axmen left the fisherman came–now the artists.”

While serving as director, Fursman rented the local lighthouse from the government for $10 per year, and would commute to work either by swimming or by rowboat. He supplied the school with its personality and strength, encouraging free expression, experimentation, and the active yet disciplined pursuit of plein-air painting. In 1920 he bought a home in downtown Saugatuck, and in 1931 he organized the Saugatuck Arts Association.

By 1913 and 1914, when he had returned to Brittany, he was less focused on representation in his paintings and had turned increasingly to abstraction with sensational color that showed the influence of the French fauvre painters.

Fursman exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy, Corcoran Gallery, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art.

Original condition.

This painting by W.A. Reaser (1860 – 1942) had been near a fireplace for some time and it suffered from prolonged smoke exposure and even slight burn damage. The paint surface was also heavily contaminated with smoke, tar, and nicotine; and craquelures, tiny ridge-like abrasions in the paint surface, had formed due to a lack of moisture.

To improve stability we re-lined with Belgian linen and then tented to hydrate the canvas. Tenting rejuvenated the painting, but it also had the advantage of adding pliability to the craquelures which made them easier to consolidate. Deep cleaning  removed the surface contaminates of smoke, tar, and nicotine. The painting was re-stretched onto the stretcher bar and then, along the craquelures, the areas were consolidated and in-painted. More in-painting was done to the areas of heat damage. Through the reverse, gesso was added to prevent the paint from causing the canvas to deteriorate. Conservation varnish was applied to finish.

The period Louis XV frame had lost decorative moldings, was very dry, and some of the existing portions needed consolidation. The frame’s gold leaf finish was also very dirty from fireplace soot.

The frame was carefully cleaned and given a back-up to add strength. Existing portions were consolidated with glue adhered underneath and in-between. To repair the ornamentation we created composition and formed to a mold. These pieces were fitted into place, fine-tuning with cutting and sanding. Final surface touches were made applying gesso, clays, and gilding to match the rest of the frame.

Born on Christmas Day, 1860 at Hicksville, Ohio, Reaser began studying art at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco. From there he continued his training in Paris at the Académie Julian in 1888-89, where hundreds of his fellow Americans congregated for instruction. His teachers were Jules-Joseph Lefebvre and Benjamin Constant.

Already in 1890, Reaser was exhibiting at the Paris Salon (Portrait of Mrs. R., and Bath Attendant) and in 1893 he contributed Girl Reading and a pastel entitled Mother and Child. After returning home, Reaser won gold and silver medals at the California Exposition in 1894 then the First Hallgarten Prize at the National Academy of Design in 1897.

He continued to submit figure painting to other national exhibitions (to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1897 and the Pennsylvania Academy, 1898 and 1900). His Portrait of Senator W.B. Allison hangs in the U.S. Senate lobby, and he is known to have painted murals in private homes. The Carnegie Museum of Art has his Mother and Daughter and the Iowa State Historical Society has some of his works. In addition, the Des Moines Art Center has Old Man and Sleeping Child.

Reaser was most active exhibiting at the Carnegie Institute (1897-1912).  He developed an astonishingly free broken-color technique in pastel, shown in Seaweed Gatherers, Italy, probably from around 1910. The entire picture surface is enlivened by juxtaposed strokes of pastel, while the artist limited his selection of colors to sky blue, ultramarine, viridian, and violet.  Reaser died on December 9, 1942 in Minneapolis.

Source:
Clark, Edna, Ohio Art and Artists. Richmond, VA: Garrett and Massie, 1932, p. 486.

Back-up to the frame.

Painting the back-up.

This painting suffers from a very dry canvas and a considerable accumulation of dirt particulates on the paint surface. There is also stress placed on the painting with how tight the fit is from the stretcher bar. The frame is dry and has dirt contaminates. Two of its corners have lost ornamentation and the liner needs to be replaced.

We’ll clean and re-line the painting. A new liner will be prepared, matching the frame finish; and the frame will be cleaned and hydrated, and the corners mended with casts made to recreate the decorative motifs that were lost. There is also a neat label on the reverse that will be a great keepsake. We’ll de-acidify it and attach it to foamcore before returning it to the frame.

A painter and teacher, Frederick Fursman (1874 – 1943) was born in El Paso, Illinois and studied in Paris at the Academy Julian and in Chicago at the Art Institute. Early in his career, he painted in France in an impressionist style, depicting the landscape of Brittany and figures in that landscape.

In 1910, he and fellow artist Walter Marshall Clute founded a summer school of painting in Saugatuck, Michigan, which would later become Ox-Bow. It was to draw inspiration from the Smith Academy and the Academe Julian, encouraging the bohemian social life of Brittany and the literary soirées of the evening clubs in Chicago. He explained to a reporter in 1930, “We found the spot one day by chance as we walked along the river and cut through the woods to the lagoon. That was in 1910. Some of my pupils at the Art Institute had been working in a summer class at Sauguatuck with Walter Clute and me for several years…I found the place as charming as its name, and this spot, close to the village and yet quite apart from it…was ideal for our purpose. The Inn was already operating. The oldest part of the present building had once been an Indian fur-trading post. Later, it had served as a lumberjack’s hotel. When the axmen left the fisherman came–now the artists.”

While serving as director, Fursman rented the local lighthouse from the government for $10 per year, and would commute to work either by swimming or by rowboat. He supplied the school with its personality and strength, encouraging free expression, experimentation, and the active yet disciplined pursuit of plein-air painting. In 1920 he bought a home in downtown Saugatuck, and in 1931 he organized the Saugatuck Arts Association.

By 1913 and 1914, when he had returned to Brittany, he was less focused on representation in his paintings and had turned increasingly to abstraction with sensational color that showed the influence of the French fauvre painters.

Fursman exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy, Corcoran Gallery, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art.