Messenger - Vol. 2, No. 2, Page 12 Winter 1993 On Campus Saving outdoor sculpture From Mt. Rushmore's presidential giants to a guardian angel in an old cemetery, outdoor sculptures represent the nation's most visible, but sometimes most overlooked and neglected, artistic treasures. In recent years, researchers in art and in science have joined forces to preserve this part of our artistic heritage. At Delaware, Wayne Craven, H.F. du Pont Professor of Art History, and John D. Meakin, chairperson of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, are two faculty involved in the conservation of outdoor sculptures. Author of the definitive book Sculpture in America and the creator of the Index of American Sculpture now computerized and maintained by the National Museum of Modern Art, Craven is an acknowledged authority on American sculpture and painting. In 1964, he and his wife, Lorna, embarked on a "safari" to record sculptures in wide-ranging locations, from Bangor, Maine, to Charleston, S.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. They were equipped with camera, flood lights, card table and typewriter. "No one else had done this," Craven recalls, "and no one knew what sculptures existed and where they were located." When Craven and his wife would arrive in a town, they would look for outdoor sculptures in parks, squares and cemeteries, and for indoor sculptures in libraries, museums and public buildings. They made inquiries about where sculptures were located and if there were any local artists. Then, using local resources, such as the library or historical society, Craven would research the statuary. His wife set up the card table and typewriter to record his notes. "There was no Xerox then so we couldn't just copy pages," he says. Some of sculptures were unusual, such as a mortar and pestle marking the grave of a pharmacist, or an inscription on one piece, announcing this was the artist's first work. The odyssey ended when the muffler fell off the car and the weather got extremely hot. "I repaired the car, and we headed for home," Craven says. A member of the American Antiquarian Society and the National Sculpture Society, Craven recently was invited to serve on the advisory board of Save Outdoor Sculpture or SOS. Launched by the National Museum of American Art, a part of the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Property, the goal of SOS is to identify and protect outdoor sculpture in all 50 states. Craven says he feels his research on sculpture can be of particular value to SOS in one area. Most sculptors apply a patina to their works. To restore a piece to its original color requires some research, such as looking back to a sculptor's correspondence with a foundry. From my research resources, I help determine the original color of the patina," he says. The corrosion process itself is of interest to John D. Meakin, an engineer whose area of expertise is metallurgy. When American sculptor Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson created the popular bronze statue, The Hiker, in 1902, she probably had no idea how valuable her tribute to Spanish-American War veterans would be to scientists in the 1980s and 90s. About 50 bronze castings of the statue, made between 1906 and 1965 by the Gorham Co. of Rhode Island, can be found at locations across the eastern half of the United States. A University of Delaware project uses these statues to study the effects on bronze of acid rain, as well as the dry deposition of gases and particulates cast into the air from cars, industry and other sources, The project was initiated in 1984 by David L. Ames, director of the University's Center for Historic Architecture and Engineering, Meakin has carried the project forward. The researchers initially decided to concentrate on 10 statues in the New England area and to analyze corrosion caused by the immediate environment. "People are so used to seeing bronze statues with a green color that they think this is the way they are intended to look. However, the green color is the result of corrosion from rain and other atmospheric conditions when the bronze surface is converted into green hydrated sulfate. The more acidic the rain, the more corrosion accelerates, with pitting and metal loss," Meakin says. Ames and Meakin literally mapped the statues to develop an overall corrosion picture of each of them. The "maps" showed protected areas that were still the original brown-black color, areas where some pitting and etching had occurred and areas of contiguous sulfide green where general corrosion had taken place. Through various methods, including color photography, scrapings of the corroded surface and metal samples of identical parts of the statues, Ames and Meakin studied variations in corrosion and the level of acidic deposition. With a recent grant from the National Park Service, Meakin is using a dental material to make molds of the end of the rifle barrel in the statue. This replicates the surface, so that Meakin can compare the degree of corrosion of the statues with various techniques including scanning electron microscopy. The surface profile information is being recorded and analyzed. "We suspect that The Hiker statues in rural settings, away from traffic, are less corroded than those exposed to industrial pollution and exhaust emissions. The Hiker project has made a significant contribution to developing ways of maintaining and protecting the country's monuments and statues, which are a part of our country's aesthetic heritage," Meakin says. --Sue Swyers Moncure