Poster Mountain

John has, over the years, conserved a number of originals and prints by the mid-20th century artist Alberto Vargas, but we received an unusual example of the artists work the other day. I can't resist giving a brief art history lesson here. Vargas is most well known for his glamorous and sensual pin-up drawings. The Peruvian native was born in 1896, but moved to Europe in 1911. He was greatly influenced by the French artists Ingres and Raphael Kirchner whose works depict their innate understanding of the female form. As WWI overtook Europe, Vargas ended up in America where he spent the majority of his career. Over the course of his life he worked as a portrait artist and illustrator for Ziegfield's Follies, Esquire and finally Playboy. It is his Playboy work that is most well known, combining form and sensuality, but never crossing the line into vulgarity with his images of the female form. Pictured: An original illustration by Vargas that exemplifies his typical style.

I love the projects where we get to show our versatility. Poster Mountain, as suggested by the name, is known for our poster conservation and restoration, but we have dealt with a variety of paper based art.  This week's project is the restoration of a book jacket. The title of the book is "A Magician Among the Spirits" which was written by Houdini and exposed the fraud of psychics and mediums. This copy was also signed by Houdini. The book jacket itself was torn in two and showed some considerable wear and tear with minor paper losses along the edges.  Pictured: The book jacket before we began work on it. Pictured: John, holding the book, with Melissa. Pictured: Houdini's signature on the first page of the book. The concern with this book jacket were the weak points where it had been folded around the book. Folding the paper creates creases and tension that weaken the paper, thus why the book jacket split along one of those fold lines. John and Melissa