Forgeries, a hidden nude and protecting our art

After 40 years as an Auckland art conservator, Sarah Hillary speaks about uncovering art forgeries, stripping away the layers and why preserving our taonga takes time and care.

Hillary (who is the daughter of Sir Edmund Hillary), has just retired as the Principal Conservator of Auckland Art Gallery. She talked with Emile Donovan on Nights:

A conservator's expertise is the materials art and artefacts are made from and the techniques used to create them, Hillary said.

"They know how to care for them and also how to treat damages. So we work with all the staff to help them with preventative conservation - make sure that damages are prevented in the first place, and then we work with treatments as well, if necessary.

"But we work with the curators a lot, because it's very useful for them to have more information about the techniques, and they don't necessarily know about that."

Unmasking the fake Lindauers

About 10 years ago, Hillary discovered that a portrait belonging to the Alexander Turnbull Library and purported to be by early New Zealand painter Gottfried Lindauer was in actual fact a fake.

"It was very sad for the institution ... we were organising the exhibition of Gottfried Lindauer's work, that opened in 2016.

"I had looked at that work and thought there was something strange about it, and it seemed a good opportunity to look at it more closely. Because we learn a huge amount by looking at unusual works, about the artist's technique."

There were many clues, she says, including the canvas used, the way the paint was built up, and

Permission was sought from the Turnbull for the painting to be examined further, which they were very good about granting, she said.

"So it was taken to Te Papa, and [with conservators at Te Papa] we looked at it really closely - and we were able to take same samples and compare it - we know a huge amount about Lindauer's technique anyway - we've got over 70 of Lindauer's works in the Auckland Art Gallery collection, so we compared it with that.

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Read more: Turnbull Library admits it bought a fake Lindauer

"Lindauer's portraits are incredibly photographic, and we now know that he use photographs for every one of his portraits in New Zealand. And these paintings - there's more than one that we've come across - they just aren't so realistic. They're quite flat, and when you look at them down the microscope, they're quite clumsily done actually, and when you really drill down they aren't nearly as well done ... he was an incredible technician, very talented, very skilled."

And analysis of a cross section of the painting found the 'ground layer' of paint - the layer applied to the canvas, was a type of pigment that had not been available during Lindauer's lifetime, proving the painting was a fake.

An unseen nude

During her career Hillary also helped discover a never-before-seen layer of a Frances Hodgkins painting.

A collection of Hodgkins' work was acquired by Auckland Art Gallery in 2007, which were all watercolours except one, which was an oil painting.

"We'd never seen an early oil like that, we had presumed it was from the time which she was in France, which was in 1908.

"All the watercolours were very easy to identify within her ouvre, in her work, but the oil was different. And Frances Hodgkins didn't really start painting in oil until [1916], or much later - but she had been attending classes in Paris in 1908.

"It had a very uneven texture, it was very textured but the texture didn't relate to the surface painting, which sometimes happens, and that's usually an indication that there's something underneath.

"And so we did a study of it."

They carefully examined to a microscopic detail, and carried out tests on the materials.

"We took it along to Auckland Radiography, and they X-rayed it ... and with their amazing digital equipment these days they were able to see that there was something underneath. We turned it around and it was clear that it was a nude figure.

"It was very exciting."

Conservation requires knowledge and expertise

Hillary stresses that conservators do a lot of research, to a very fine level, to inform their recommendations, assessments and any actions that are taken.

"We don't want to interfere with the artwork too much - we want to interfere as little as possible. Whereas in the past they did do quite invasive treatments, and now we're dealing with them later and it is a real problem to reverse them.

"We try to make sure that they're reversible, and that they're minimal and that they don't alter the appearance."

The work can be complex.

"A lot of treatments are very tricky, and that's why we always tell people 'try to avoid damaging things in the first place' - because it's not always possible to treat it, and it may not be as lovely as it was before."

"Even cleaning dirt - I mean we had to adjust the pH, and we had to add all these different kinds of surfactants, because there are so many components in some of these paints - particularly the modern ones, and one part of it will be soluble in something - so you have to be quite careful."

An overview of conservatorship at the gallery

Hillary is now working on a history of the conservation at the Auckland Art Gallery, which is the oldest New Zealand gallery to employ a conservator, with the first one starting work there in 1964.

She admits her favourite works at the gallery are constantly changing, but says at the moment it is a work by Buster Black (whose last name was also Pihama); a nocturn or night scene.

"I just love those nocturns, night scenes - they're so beautiful, and this is a particularly good one."