Poster Mountain

This week we're going to look at just one aspect of an unusual restoration project that we just completed. A lot of posters that come into our studio are missing pieces.We have several ways to restore missing areas. Sometimes we have a reference for these, either in our own database or from the client. If there is no reference we get the opportunity to let our artists have a little more freedom and create it completely from scratch. This was the case when one of our clients brought in a Dutch "Tarzan Triumphs" door panel. After the poster was demounted there was only a small portion that was left of the original poster and no reference for it. Pictured: Original Dutch "Tarzan Triumphs" door panel before we did any conservation or restoration.  Pictured: "Tarzan Triumphs" after it had been demounted. The incomparable Antonia spent about two days on the paper patch and prep needed for this poster.  So between Aaron doing the airbrushing and

So, occasionally we get things in that are not strictly paper based. An example of the range of ephemera that Poster Mountain is experienced with are canvas banners and over the years Poster Mountain has done a few of these. The project we are featuring this week is a Depression era Punch and Judy circus banner. A brief history lesson on "Punch and Judy". Punch and Judy were a puppet show that evolved in Europe over several centuries and gained popularity in the 18th and 19th century as a kids show. Punch was the protagonist and Judy was a supporting character. The show followed a pretty simple, if non-sensical plot. Punch would get into mischief of one kind or another, would be caught and then an attempt to arrest him would be made by a policeman puppet. Punch would invariably end up outwitting his pursuers in a scrappy and usually violent way. Judy was his shrewish wife who was almost as abusive to Punch as Punch was to her. Over the years new characters and plots evolved

Since the advent of photography, the popularity of hand drawn or painted portraits has slowly dwindled. They are considered old fashioned or a novelty and have been phased out in most of our homes. A few weeks ago, however, a client brought in a pastel portrait of his brother that was drawn at Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica in 1961, the subject was 9 years old at the time. The glass in the frame had been broken and had damaged part of the drawing. Pictured: Before shot of the pastel portrait removed from its frame. The portrait had a tear through the upper left corner. In addition there was some discoloration due to oxidation visible throughout the background. The mat board had protected the areas that were still grey, the original paper color, but the rest of the paper had oxidized. The condition of the paper was a factor that we had to take into account during the mounting and restoration processes. Pictured: Tear in the upper left corner and the oxidation discoloratio