Painting Conservation

Our paintings conservators have post-graduate university conservation degrees and experience in museum conservation labs, to treat all genres of painting from historic to contemporary. With our team of paintings conservators, we are well positioned to conserve paintings collections and large format paintings.

Our treatments are carried out with precision and detail to ensure clean, ethical and extremely high-quality work to ensure retention of the artwork’s artistic and financial value.  The lab uses contemporary techniques combined with traditional expertise and practical intuition.  Analysis of paintings is done using various lighting techniques, UV fluorescence and IR reflectography and stereo and digital microscopes.  Rigorous testing is done before all steps to ensure a painting’s safety.

Our conservators have advanced training in new methods for cleaning paintings including the use of rigid gels, the Modular Cleaning Program for aqueous cleaning mixtures and CAPS  (Cleaning Acrylic Surfaces) for safe cleaning of acrylic and modern paint surfaces.  Larger works such as murals and oversize artworks are conserved on-site by our team of paintings conservators.  Our goal is to improve the visual quality of an artwork as well as the long term preservation using best practices in preventive conservation.

We are the only private lab in Western Canada with a multipurpose heated suction table for consolidation, realignment of painting layers, and to facilitate linings.  We use the latest technology, specialized tools and equipment for treatment steps such as cleaning, varnish removal, tear repair, consolidation and restoration of paintings.  The lab has every possible conservation material such as solvents, resins, pigments, inpainting and infilling media to obtain the best results in treatment of paintings, whether historic or contemporary.  In addition to conserving paintings, the lab conserves frames and offers museum grade conservation framing.

To see examples of our work in paintings conservation, please refer to our paintings portfolio.