Repairing a damaged painting by Rothko will take 18 months

When an act of vandalism was committed on a painting by Mark Rothko at an exhibition in Tate Modern last month, some experts predicted that the work would be returned to the exposition quite quickly.

However, after a thorough analysis of the damage, a team of leading gallery experts said that the restoration of the canvas will require significant investments and can take up to 18 months.

Vladimir Umanets

In October, Vladimir Umanets, claiming that he acts in the interests of a conceptual direction in art called “Yellowism”, made an ink inscription in the picture. As it turned out, the ink was deeply ingrained in the canvas of the picture and removing them would not be so simple.

Representatives of the gallery also added that statements about the “quick” restoration of the painting were made based on the results of an external examination, in which it is impossible to determine the depth of internal damage. Despite its apparent simplicity, Rothko’s paintings, as you know, are difficult to restore, because the artist often mixed his paints with unusual materials, and also used thin layers of paints to achieve the depth and richness of the image. His works often consist of hundreds of elaborate layers.

In 2009, Tate Modern organized an exhibition of Rothko’s works, where one room was entirely devoted to the process of creating paintings using the artist’s technique. According to an article in the catalog for the exhibition, Rothko’s paintings are so highly valued precisely because of the complexity of his painting technique. The artist makes such thin layers that it is often impossible to detect and visualize using conventional means.

Note that last week, Rothko’s painting No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) was bidding and was sold for $ 75.1 million (£ 47.2 million) at an auction in New York.

Currently, Vladimir Umanets is under arrest. He was charged with damages worth more than £ 5,000. The arrested person himself does not consider his act a criminal case.

12/13/2012 Polish citizen Wlodzimierz Umaniec, also known as Vladimir Umaniec, who was arrested after committing an act of vandalism against a painting by Mark Rothko in the Tate Modern gallery, pleaded guilty to causing damage and was sentenced to two years in prison. Royal Court Judge Roger Chapple called the convict’s actions “totally and completely unacceptable,” and the damaged piece of art “the property of the nation.”

After the verdict was passed, Umanets said: “This was not an act of destruction. It was an act of creativity. ” He also said that the time he would spend in prison would give him a “deeper understanding of humanity”.

Anna Sidorova