Poster Mountain

 Our first blog post of 2016 (where 2015 went I have no idea) is about a ca. 1978 Grateful Dead serigraph by the artist Stanely Mouse. (A short disclaimer: This serigraph was printed using gold metallic ink, which is incredibly hard to photograph so that it looks the same consistently so please keep that in mind when viewing our photos.) This piece came to us for several different reasons. As you can see from the before photo there is some scuffing and dinging visible in the gold. On the back of the print there is also foxing, which is the general term used for certain types of oxidation in paper that causes red, rust like spots. While I personally am not a Grateful Dead fan, I think this is a very elegant concert poster. It has an art deco feel to the lines and composition, with strong Egyptian influences mixed with the overtones of American Rock music from that era. Additional photos from before conservation show that the poster was also curling a bit. A shot of the back...

Most of the previous blogs have focused on the conservation side of our work here at Poster Mountain. Depending on how damaged a poster is and the kind of look a client wants, some posters never go to our restoration department. Most, however, receive at least a little bit of restoration. Others get more attention, especially when there is a lot of paper missing or damage to the image. The poster that is the topic of this week's blog is a World War I recruitment poster from 1917. The poster was only partially complete mounted to a board and was missing a large section at the top. It should read, "Join the Air Force and Serve in France".  Pictured: Image before conservation and restoration work began. Robin and John carefully removed the poster from the board, washed and then mounted the poster to linen before it was sent to restoration. Antonia had a considerable amount of prep work to do because we had to add back in about a 1/4 of the paper. Just a quick side n...