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The big picture: conservation in action
Conrad Astley31/ 3/2006
A HISTORIC painting which has spent the last two decades rolled
up in storage is now being restored in a Manchester museum.
Visitors to the Imperial War Museum North in Trafford Park will be
able to see Walter Bayes' 1918 painting The Underworld being
painstakingly brought back to its former glory.
The painting is one of very few showing civilians using London
Underground stations as shelters from German Zeppelin bombers,
which killed hundreds during the First World War.
It is thought the artist saw the scene outside the Elephant And
Castle tube station in south London, as this was close to the art
school where he taught, and painted the huge piece for display at
the Royal Academy. However, the painting was rolled up and placed
in storage during the 1980s, when the Imperial War Museum London -
where it was kept - was about to be refurbished.
The 5.5m long piece is fragile as it was painted on two theatre
flat canvases sewn together, rather than the usual artists' canvas.
The material folded back on itself during storage, creating two
vertical lines of damage across the canvas, paint, and
varnish.
It is now being put on display for the first time in decades, as
Paris-based conservator Warwick MacCallum spends the next few weeks
restoring the painting by cleaning, varnishing and retouching
it.
The Imperial War Museum's keeper of art Roger Tolson said: "Bayes
clearly felt motivated by the subject matter to have worked on this
scale. It's an important glimpse of social history in terms of
characters, dress, relations and behaviour, and is a very engaging
and immediate image.
"This conservation work means the public can have permanent access
to the painting."
The conservation work is expected to go on until mid April,
and Underworld will remain on display after the museum's First
World War exhibition ends on April 23.
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