Canada’s Number One Chemist to the Arts
As
a young girl growing up in Ottawa, Alison Murray was fascinated by
visits to the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the National Gallery
of Canada. “I loved art history and archaeology, but I became more
and more interested in science in high school.”
She eventually studied chemistry and physics at university, but she
jumped at the opportunity when Johns Hopkins University and the Smithsonian
Institution offered her a fellowship in their new joint graduate program
in materials science and engineering. Since the program was geared specifically
to the science of art conservation, she realized it would be just the
ticket for behind-the-scenes admission to her beloved museums and galleries.
She is the only person in Canada to hold this specialized Ph.D.
Now at Queen’s University, Dr. Murray is the only scientist
in the art department. But she says she feels neither lonely nor isolated
in this role. “It’s exciting to teach art historians and
art conservators about the science of art.”
The NSERC-funded material scientist studies the effects of various
cleaning solutions on acrylic paintings. “There’s been so
much work done with oil paints,” she says. “But acrylics
are relatively new, having first been taken up by artists in the 1950s.”
 While
many artists love acrylic paints for their fast-drying qualities, Dr. Murray
says art conservators find them challenging to treat because the paint
films dissolve in many traditional solvents. Since works of art can
be irreversibly damaged during cleaning, one-of-a-kind examples of cultural
heritage may be destroyed in the process.
“We’ve done studies to ask conservators what they use
to clean acrylics and they responded by saying, ‘go with great
care and caution when trying to remove the dirt!’”
“The first step is identifying the materials in the paint because
additives in acrylic paint can change the chemistry,” Dr. Murray
says. She chooses from a whole host of scientific tests to help identify
the paint’s make-up, using equipment that ranges from ultrasound
and digital imaging, to 3-D lasers, scanning electron microscopy and
pyrolysis gas chromatography.
Dr. Murray is also interested in how cleaning will affect the long-term
condition of the painting. “Will it be able to withstand shock
and vibration during transportation? What will happen if there are changes
to relative humidity? How will it stand up to future cleaning? We’re
trying to understand these things in order to safeguard the materials.”
Dr. Murray’s ultimate goal is to develop guidelines that will
help art conservators choose safe and effective treatments for modern
and contemporary paintings. And she hopes these guidelines will help
move some works of art out of storage vaults, onto public display. “Curators
are not very keen on displaying works if the colours are not pristine
or if there is an area that is marred or marked. And if conservators
aren’t sure how best to treat the painting, curators are simply
not displaying the work. They are putting them in storage until they
know the answers, so we’re all missing out on seeing the art.”
The results from Dr. Murray’s work will be applied to acrylic
paintings owned by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre on the Queen’s
University campus. Techniques being investigated in Dr. Murray’s
lab have been applied to the treatment of paintings by major Canadian
modernist Yves Gauthier, well known for his very thinly and evenly
painted acrylic surfaces.
Dr. Murray says one of the perks of her job is the annual supervision
of 12 research projects from master’s students in the art
conservation program at Queen’s. “They may be artists, art
historians, or archaeologists, with a variety of backgrounds and expertise.”
This allows Dr. Murray to learn about the conservation of a wide
range of art materials, from Egyptian bronzes, to Whistler’s pastels,
to wall murals painted on plaster in Mexico City. In her own student
days, Dr. Murray investigated the wood in totem poles and other
museum artefacts that originated in native communities.
 “From
the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, museum professionals used arsenic as
a pesticide in their treatments,” Dr. Murray says. “Since
there is now a big push for repatriation of native art, we need to know
if these arsenic-laden artefacts can be safely returned to the community.
For example, if the object was used in a traditional dance, how dangerous
would it be? Many people are working to find solutions to these issues.”
Just as other art conservation scientists have helped preserve for
future generations great artworks such as the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel by Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci’s mural of the Last
Supper, Dr. Murray is poised to make significant contributions to the
understanding of the conservation of modern materials.
Contact:
Dr. Alison Murray
Tel.: (613) 533-6166
E-mail: am26@post.queensu.ca
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