“If we get our preventive conservation right, we have much less conservation treatment to do on the artwork itself.”

Margaret Haupt is stressing the value of what we might dismiss as housekeeping — things like light, humidity and temperature around the building. She knows their importance, because she is the AGO’s Deputy Director of Collections Management and Conservation.

The AGO gets its preventive conservation right by controlling a range of factors. These are the most critical, says Margaret, in this order.

• Touching: Don’t! The rule is sometimes hard to enforce, but it’s our greatest priority. The grease and acid from fingerprints cause serious cumulative damage. Go check the Henry Moore sculptures at McCaul and Dundas: human contact has worn right through the patina to the bare metal and weldings underneath.

• Light: It is carefully managed, with most paintings exposed to 150 lux (amount of light falling on the object), and our most sensitive works exhibited under 50 lux and for short periods of time. Ultraviolet light is totally eliminated, thanks to transparent filters on all windows.
• Humidity: Changing humidity puts huge stress on art works, as materials expand and contract with the fluctuations. We’re very good at maintaining a stable 45% relative humidity, within a 5% range.
• Temperature: A steady temperature of 20-21 Celsius keeps both the art and our visitors happy.
• Pollution, contamination, pests: We meet the very high standards of the Canadian Conservation Institute for air filtration and purity. Pests, especially moths, are of growing concern both sides of the Atlantic. We have had a moth problem (they hitch-hiked a ride in an incoming packing case), but the latest report is: we’ve won the battle.

Want to learn more? Visit the AGO’s Art Matters blog (http://artmatters.ca) and scroll down for three Conservation Notes posts:

• “Catching Up with Claes Oldenburg’s Floor Burger,” Sept. 24, 2012
• “Getting to Know a Hygrothermograph,” Aug. 27, 2012
• “Why We Don’t Touch the Art,” July 30, 2012 (first click on Older Entries)