We are in the process of characterizing materials used in art works with the ultimate purpose of determining the nature of materials used by the artist Victor Brauner (1903-66) in works at the Menil Collection. This work is being done in collaboration with Brad Epley, Chief Conservator at the Menil Collection and Aniko Bezur, Research Scientist at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Menil Collection. We have studied reference samples of typical artists' materials, and sub-milligram samples from painted mockups prepared to resemble the works of Brauner. We have experimented with several procedures due to the large amount of wax used in some Brauner works and its interference with the detection and identification of other materials. In the process of doing this, we have developed a library of structures and a separate library of mass spectra (Agilent ChemStation format ) of selected compounds identified in these materials.

Characterization of the materials used by the artist Victor Brauner: Progress report

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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