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Show collections Restoring a Legacy One of the Museum's earliest and most important benefactors was Mrs. Richard Hudnut Her donations of English, French, and Italian art, along with her daughter Natacha Rambova's gift of Egyptian antiquities, spurred the creation of permanent gallery space for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Among the gifts was a portrait of Natacha commissioned in 1925 entitled Portrait of a Lady. Over the course of many years, decorative elements of the portrait's frame were damaged. In order to reconstruct the frame to its original splendor, the restoration team took casts of the intact corner to recreate the missing parts. The back of the frame was also built up in order to meet today's conservation standards. The frame of Portrait of a Lady was restored in 2012 through a gift from The Joy Kingston Foundation and Chairman/CEO Paul Matthew Layne. Mr. Layne directed the Foundation's gift to the UMFA to honor Natacha Rambova for her great contributions to the Museum and its collections. I Portrait of Natacha Rambova frame detail. TOP ABOVE I Pavle "Paja" Jovanovic (Serbian, 1859-1957), Portrait of Natacha Rambova, detail, oil on canvas. Gift of Mrs. Richard A. Hudnut. CENTER I Unknown artist (Italian , 15th century), Recumbent Lion, marble. Gift of Mrs. Richard A. Hudnut. Lighter color indicates where conservation work has been done. BELOW I Robyn Haynie. Cris Baczek photo. Among the numerous gifts that the Hudnut family donated to the UMFA is a pair of fifteenth-century Italian marble pieces: Recumbent Lion and Recumbent Lioness with Cubs. Recently, Recumbent Lion and Recumbent Lioness with Cubs each underwent a facelift at the hands of Geneva-based conservator Catherine Orange Fischer, who graciously agreed to volunteer her expertise to revitalize the marble felines. Mrs. Fischer has worked closely with the UMFA collections staff on a variety of conservation projects, and the UMFA thanks her for all of her hard work. Looking Forward ... The UMFA has hired its first full-time conservator, Robyn Haynie, who came to us from the world-renowned Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Haynie is doing both preventive and remedial work in the permanent collection and exhibitions. |
