Historic Hotel - Emergency Removal of Cornelius Hicks Mural
During cleaning detail.
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During major historic preservation and restoration of an eleven story 1925 historic hotel, a third section of what was thought to be a diptych mural above the current registration desk was discovered at the end of an adjacent hallway covered by drywall. This third mural panel was recessed into the wall, and was surrounded by wonderfully curved Art Deco moldings just like the other two sections of the “Colonial Revival” triptych.
The scene of this fictitious Colonial Era hotel was painted by Cornelius Grover Hicks in 1926 fitting the “Colonial Revival/Art Deco” theme of the hotel. Hicks was born in Massachusetts on February 9, 1898 and was the first child of Job and Marilla Hicks to reach adulthood. He appears to have used the nickname – “Connie” and signed some of his artwork Connie Hicks, as apposed to the triptych, which is signed and date – “Cornelius Hicks 1926.” He studied at the Pratt Art Institute in New York City, and later taught at this institution. In addition to being an accomplished painter he produced illustrations for Collier’s, Mentor, Liberty and Elks magazines as well. Hicks’ career was unfortunately cut short, when he contracted Tuberculosis, and died in 1930 at the age of 32.
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The majority of the mural was executed in a thinly applied opaque paint layer in an oil-based medium and was painted in a very illustrative Norman-Rockwellian Style. Some of the figures and highlights were painted with a heavy three-dimensional impasto. This painting technique was purposefully done by the artist to accentuate these figures as he developed his composition. In all three panels there was some wall settling causing cracks around the perimeter of the 1’ square terra-cotta blocks that made up the wall behind the paintings. These blocks were separated from the canvas murals by three layers of plaster, which was about 1 ½” to 2” thick. The canvas to plaster wall bond was delaminating in some areas of the third panel, similar to that of the other murals. We assumed the canvas would easily separate from the plaster but found areas still fixed rock solid the wall was with an undetermined adhesive. Wall settlement had caused the thin bands of mortar between the terra cotta 1’sq. blocks to crack, resulting in the blocks themselves to slightly shift. This shifting caused some stretch cracks/tears in the painting along the affected block joints. During our initial investigation we also discovered that the third panel was coated with a thick discolored natural resin varnish, a thick embedded layer of fine black soot, dirt, and nicotine on the surface. All three panels had not been conserved, cleaned, or restored in the past 92 years since their creation.
Removing mural from the wall.
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Hartmann Conservation was contacted to remove this left triptych mural at the Yorktowne Hotel as an emergency due to the sudden realization that the nearby 12 story stair tower was slated to be demolished in two weeks.
Over the next few days, we mobilized staff and equipment on site to test how, and whether the mural panel could come off the wall and found that the unknown adhesive binding the canvas to the wall was solidly adhered and would not be easy to separate. We applied two sheets of heavy weight Japanese tissue paper to the front of the mural. Using a reversible adhesive helps to protect the mural during its removal from the wall. We came back a few days later after the facing adhesive had dried to continue the mural removal process and transport to our facility in Carlisle, PA.
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We started removing the mural by using a grinder cut-off blade, cold chisel and hammer to cut into and remove the plaster surrounding the mural. Once removed, the top edge of the plaster was cut to the depth of 3/4” with the cutoff blade. From left to right, a cold chisel was tapped along the plaster blocks, immediately shearing off the plaster behind the mural to the face of the block. Each time a section of the mural detached corresponding to a horizontal row of terra cotta tiles, a foot high section of mural immediately flopped down to 90 degrees, because of its weight. The only thing protecting the painting from severing at each horizontal bend was the strength of the original canvas and the two layers of Japanese facing tissue. It is expected that there will be damage to the paint at each of these horizontal bends, and in other isolated areas where cracks were made. In general, removal of the mural was easier than expected, and with less damage than could have happened. As each foot high mural section flopped down, we ground all but about 3/8” of the plaster off of the back of the mural section. This process was repeated for the remaining block sections. We used a support to catch the mural as it was coming off the wall. The weight of the mural with ½” to 1 ½” of plaster residue on the back necessitated the use of a support to ensure the mural’s safety.
Once removed from the wall, the five connected rigid mural panel sections (corresponding to the five high terra-cotta blocks behind the mural), were stood up onto the left side. This rigid structure was wrapped face in around a 1’ diameter tube and secured for transport to our conservation facility in Carlisle, PA.
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Once transported and unwrapped, the mural panel was placed face down on a Mylar covered worktable. The horizontal breaks in the plaster residue on the mural’s back had crumbled enough that the faced mural no longer would sit flat and was now slightly bowed concavely. The plaster and mortar layers on the back of the painted canvas mural panel were 1 ½” thick in some sections, and the entire mural now weighed close to 150 – 200 lbs. We rolled a worktable outside so that when plaster/mortar layers were removed the corrosive hazardous dust would not be inside our facility. Using proper PPE, the backing layers were carefully and slowly ground away. During the planning phase for this project, we thought that this process might take 40 hours to accomplish but weren’t quite sure what kind of grinding, sanding, and scraping process would be necessary to completely remove the plaster/mortar layers without damaging the faced painting. We quickly realized that this removal process was going to take a lot longer. In fact, it took slightly over 140 hours to complete. After removing the plaster down to at least an 1/8” over most of the back of the painting, we decided that it wasn’t safe to remove the final remnants that were still firmly bonded to the back of the canvas.
Grinding mortar off the back of the mural.
After discussing the status of the mural with the client it was decided not to further remove the adhesive/plaster residue and proceed to mounting the mural on a rigid mount.
Removing facing.
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We mounted the mural onto a ¼” thick sheet aluminum-clad lightweight rigid panel with a plastic corrugated core. This low-profile panel was chosen so that when it was eventually remounted onto the wall adjacent to the other two murals in the hotel, it would appear to be mounted like originally intended. When remounted, it will be placed at a right angle to the other two murals on the outside of the new stair tower above the registration desk for the hotel.
A heavy-duty construction adhesive was chosen to mount the mural onto the panel so that there would be no chance of it delaminating and falling. Once an even application of adhesive was achieved, the faced mural was placed face down on the metal surface of the vacuum hot table on top of silicon coated Mylar, and the panel (adhesive side down) was lowered on the back of the mural. The panel was weighted evenly and left to set/cure over a long 3-day weekend. After the weights were removed, the adhesive was found to be firmly bonded, but was still pliable. Surface deformities, or areas where the mural was slightly out of plane, could still be slightly adjusted.
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After several more days of drying, the mural’s facing was removed using an organic solvent to swell or release the adhesive bonding the facing tissue. There was some unexpected loss of paint during this facing removal process because of unknown areas of inter-laminar paint cleavage caused by the harshness of the method required to get the mural off of the hotel’s lobby wall.
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Once the facing was removed, the dirt and discolored varnish coatings were removed using the appropriate solvents.
The cleaned mounted mural was given an isolating spray coat of synthetic varnish before losses were filled with gesso and inpainted using conservation grade paints.
Full Cleaning - before fills & varnish.
After - fills & varnish.
After Treatment
After Treatment