Nicknamed the ‘modern Michelangelo’ during his lifetime, sculptor George Grey Barnard (1863-1938) is best known for his heroic sculptures and outdoor art. But his larger-than-life pieces started as sketches or drawings on paper, including more than 800 such drawings that are now part of the collection at the University of Delaware Museums. One of these, a graphite and watercolor drawing of a muscular male figure sitting in a twisted, contorted position executed on an 8 ½ x 11 inch piece of newsprint, had suffered a substantial loss in the upper left corner, a tear down the left side of the paper, and iron accretions left by a paper clip at the top of the page. This year it fell to Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC) Fellow Emily Farek to treat the drawing so that it could be safely handled and used for study.
Emily, a paper major with a minor in library/archives, enjoys working with drawings because of the attention that must be paid to their aesthetics. She was interested to visit UD’s collection of Barnard drawings and papers and learn more about his artistic process and use of materials. She found that many of the drawings are on newsprint and very few include a watercolor wash. At least some, including the drawing she was treating, never became sculptures and remain only ideas captured on paper.