Renewed life for neglected airport art
Restoration puts Shadbolt's Bush Pilot back in the public eye
Ron Chalmers, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Thursday, May 10, 2007
EDMONTON - One of Edmonton's great works of public art has regained the brilliance of its cobalt blue and wintry white oil paint after two months of restoration by local conservator Cyndie Lack.
Bush Pilot in Northern Sky, a semi-abstract image of a prairie landscape as seen from above, was painted by Canadian artist Jack Shadbolt in 1963 on a commission for the Edmonton International Airport terminal.
He used contact cement to attach the six strips of painted canvas to the east wall, near the escalators.
Paintings conservator Cyndie M. Lack restored Jack Shadbolt's Bush Pilot in Northern Sky on the second level of the main terminal at the Edmonton International Airport. Shadbolt created the painting in 1963 for $18,000. Its appraised value is now $750,000.View Larger Image View Larger Image
Paintings conservator Cyndie M. Lack restored Jack Shadbolt's Bush Pilot in Northern Sky on the second level of the main terminal at the Edmonton International Airport. Shadbolt created the painting in 1963 for $18,000. Its appraised value is now $750,000.
Greg Southam, The Journal
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"The canvas was starting to peel away from the wall along the seams and at the edges," Lack says.
She reattached the canvas to the underlying plaster, and removed a few smears of cement that she found on the paint -- which didn't surprise her.
Given the painting's six-metre by 11-metre size, the weight of the canvas, and fumes from the contact cement, she says the installation must have been "a very stressful job."
YEARS OF GRIME
Lack used a vacuum and soft brush to clean the painting which was "virtually untouched since 1963," she says.
"Nicotine was a major component, because smoking had been allowed in that area for decades."
Where the brittle paint was separating from the surface, Lack applied humidity and gentle pressure to renew its bond.
She added new paint in a few spots where the original paint had flaked off.
With the original colours newly revealed, the blues and whites are more intense, restoring "a heightened contrast between positive and negative space," Lack says.
Tony Luppino, director of the Art Gallery of Alberta, calls Bush Pilot "an amazing work of art, the way it floats between abstract and narrative."
SMALL BITES
Shadbolt obviously planned it for the specific site, where it would be seen by people rushing by, Luppino said. "It speaks to you in quick glances, like bits of conversation."
And it's no mere decoration, he emphasized.
"It's great art and it's exactly why art in public places works, because people do not go to art galleries as often as they go to other buildings."
When Bush Pilot originally was unveiled, Senator Donald Cameron called it "completely meaningless" but J. Russell Harper of the National Gallery said it "radiates an overwhelming sense of vastness." Lack says she was delighted to be chosen for this conservation because she had talked to Shadbolt, shortly before he died in 1998, about this "absolutely beautiful mural."
A Second Cup coffee kiosk that had obscured the view has been moved, and the painting is now complemented by a historical display about the original installation.
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© The Edmonton Journal 2007
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