Thanks to last year’s boost in city funding to maintain the Public Art Collection, POAC was able to hire painting conservator Gary Hulbert to clean eight of the collection’s 24 historic landscape paintings, dating from 1915 to the early 1930s. In June, Hulbert stripped away the paintings’ old varnish, cleaned and resealed the surfaces, and spruced up the frames. The weeklong effort brought the vibrant colors of the original works out from under years of yellowed varnish and desert dust. Additional funds will help POAC’s Collection’s Manager, Chris park, continue the great work she has done in conserving and improving storage for these genes from the Phoenix Municipal Art Collection.

A partially cleaned painting

Close up of the cleaning process