What not to do to a Painting

Valerie: In general, what are the biggest mistakes people make when they are not looking after their paintings?

Uno Langmann: Well, if they don’t know the value of the painting, obviously a lot of people think they can dress up a painting by putting, by getting it brightened up or whatever. And sometimes they use the wrong cleaning, and sometimes they put on too heavy a varnish. In this case you can see how it’s all bubbled and that’s because they put on, most likely, a shellac.

Uno Langmann: People put shellac on their paintings?

Uno Langmann: Shellac on top of the dirt – that’s even worse. But sometimes putting it on top of the dirt will help remove it afterwards because you have a kind of a cushion in between the painting…

Uno Langmann: So the rule, though, for paintings is almost like anything valuable – don’t touch it.

Uno Langmann: Don’t touch it until you know what it is.

Valerie: And keep it mainly sort of dark and looked after…

Uno Langmann: No, in a painting you don’t have to worry about the light. Sometimes the painting will need re-varnishing but don’t re-varnish it yourself until you know what type of paint it is.
Valerie: And you see stuff that just kills you, that people have done.

Uno Langmann: And don’t use shellac… Yes, we’ve seen a lot of sad things, you know, sometimes the painting is found in a garbage can. Some of our best paintings have been found by people in garbage cans. So you know that there was not much thought given to the value prior to putting it in the garbage can.

Valerie: Thank you.

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