Conservation, Construction, and Transportation of
Portrait of Mexico Today, 1932

Perry Huston, Chief Conservator of the project and principal of Perry Huston Associates in Dallas, Texas, called the conservation and transportation of David Alfaro Siqueiros’ mural Portrait of Mexico Today, 1932 "one of the most interesting projects in America."  Two factors distinguished this project from all others:  the building housing the mural was transported in its entirety, including its foundation, from its original location in the Los Angeles area to its new home outside the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and the pioneering use of a state-of-the-art conservation material called cyclododecane.

Many murals have been moved from one point to another.  Those that are part of the wall, such as true frescoes, often require moving much of the wall with the mural.  All possible approaches were considered in moving the Siqueiros mural.  Among these were moving the mural in sections or in one piece.  The mural had been painted on the inside of five walls of a garden structure.  The recommendation to the Museum by the Huston conservation team was to move the mural as one piece.  This approach would preserve as much of the original surroundings of the mural as possible.  The Museum’s decision to move the whole structure was proven to be the correct approach for a number of reasons.  Among them was the later discovery that the actual mural extended below the wall four inches onto the foundation. 

Huston’s conservation team included Andrea Rothe, senior conservator for special projects at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Scott Haskins of Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory (FACL) of Santa Barbara; and longtime Huston team members Anne Rosenthal from San Francisco, Deborah Selden of New York, and Maura Duffy and Larry Keck of Washington, D.C.  Also consulting conservator Gary McGowan from New York, three assistants from the J. Paul Getty Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art Facilities Manager John Coplin and his assistants Jay Ewart, Ignacio Salcedo, and Nancy Rogers.  The team began by documenting the mural’s condition, including photo-documentation.

The mural had been studied for over a year by Museum staff.  Several independent conservators had been asked to recommend approaches.  After the Museum accepted the approach Huston recommended, his conservation team was assembled before the mural to complete the final study and begin the conservation work.  Earlier analytical studies had confirmed that Siqueiros had used a true fresco technique in painting the mural. However, he had not used the traditional materials.  He had used cement as a final “plaster layer” and an oil medium rather that the traditional water-soluble medium for applying the pigmented (paint) layer.  The paint layer had not become locked into the wall as with true frescoes.

The conservation team was dealing with the problems associated with fresco secco (dry fresco) rather than true fresco.  The team was surprised to discover that the paint solubility varied throughout the mural.   “Some passages were soluble in water, and some in naptha (a mild solvent), some in alcohol and hydrocarbons,” explained Mr. Huston.  “Commonly, facings using materials with solubilities different than that of the paint are applied to mural surfaces to protect them when moving.  However, the traditional water or solvent materials could not be used in this case because of the solubility parameters of the mural.”

Huston called in Gary McGowan, an expert in the use of cyclododecane, a material originally developed in Europe for industrial applications.  Fine art conservators have been using it with great interest for the past few years because it turns directly from a solid to a gas, with no liquid state.  It could be applied to the mural and would, over the course of several months, disappear on its own, obviating the usual need to remove such a protective coating with a solvent.  The use of cyclododecane would make the varying solubilities of the paint irrelevant to the conservation

process.  “As far as I know, this is the first time cyclododecane has been used on a project this large,” said Mr. Huston.  “We seemed to have procured the available world’s supply of it for this project!”

The conservators also performed more standard conservation processes, including reattaching and consolidating several flakes of paint that had come loose from the wall to hold them in place during the move.  They removed the grime layer from the surface in preparation for the application of the cyclododecane.  A layer of gauze was incorporated within the heavy facing layer.

Carpentry, Construction and Transportation

John L. Sullivan, executive project manager of Armstrong Associates, Inc. of Santa Barbara, masterminded the necessary construction and carpentry for the stabilization and movement of the mural.  After several meetings with Perry Huston and structural engineer Greg Van Sande of Howard Van Sande Structrual Engineers, he agreed that the best approach would be to move the mural in its entirety.  “I knew it could be done,” said Sullivan, “and it all worked perfectly, but I had never before moved wooden studs with a priceless fresco on them.”

Van Sande came up with the idea of a steel understructure, which would in essence prevent the building from twisting, or flexing, at all.   While the safety of the mural was paramount, other factors had to be taken into consideration once the decision was made to move the building in its entirety and transport it by truck up the freeway to Santa Barbara.  Huston, Van Sande and Armstrong all wanted to reinforce the building as much as possible, yet the whole structure had to be 12 feet, 6 inches wide and no more than 14 feet high to fit under the bridges on the highway. 

Subcontracting out the steelwork and the actual moving, Sullivan moved right into the carpentry and demolition work.  He and his crew had to remove the plaster ceiling and take off the whole roof structure in such a way that it could be reproduced in Santa Barbara.  The crew couldn’t use hammers or nails for fear of damaging the mural; they relied exclusively on drills and screws. 

After the roof was removed, the construction crew moved to the foundation.  They dug around the existing foundation and determined a location 16 inches below ground level to cut off the foundation.  Before cutting, they cored 10-inch holes in the foundation to accept the steel cross beams, which would form the new foundation.  The crew then saw-cut the whole foundation off, inserting high density plastic shims as they made each incision.  After trimming the core holes so that the steel beams would fit precisely, the crew propped the beams in and put them snugly against the concrete, while welding them from below.  Once the structural steel was in place, the crew erected plywood walls for even greater stability, installed in sections so that they could be easily removed and put back in place after routine inspections of the mural’s condition were performed.  Once the painting was completely protected, the roof and the brick floor were removed.  Each of the bricks from the floor was carefully numbered so that each could be put back in the original location. Then the whole structure was coated with the fiberwrap, a heavy-duty fiberglass that adheres to stucco and creates a very strong shell.  Now the mural was ready to be put on the truck and driven to Santa Barbara. 

Ted Hollinger of the Los Angeles-based company Master House Movers took charge of the move.  He and his crew brought in a 120-ton crane with 110 foot of boom and moved it as close to the mural as possible.  They hooked four nylon straps to the steel armature under the mural and lifted it onto the transporter, an air–ride double drop trailer pulled by a Peterbilt truck.  They drove the truck from the original site to Sunset Boulevard and the 405 freeway and then up the 101 freeway to Santa Barbara.  A larger crane was needed to unload the mural in Santa Barbara, because its new location outside the Museum on Santa Barbara’s main street prevented the crew from getting as close as they could at the mural’s original site.  They brought in a 300-ton hydrocrane, with the capacity of 180 boom, although they only needed to use about half of the crane’s boom capacity for the unloading.   The crew made the final adjustments by hand, guiding the mural to sit exactly on its new foundation.

The final phases of the conservation took place in Santa Barbara.  Any loose areas within the walls were infused by hypodermic injections with appropriate materials and old losses were filled and inpainted with reversible materials.