Fine Art Restoration & Cleaning Services

At Simpson Galleries, we give first-class customer service not only to our clients, but to those pieces that they may hold near and dear. Watch the video below as our restorationist, Laura Bledsoe, gives insight into our restoration process.

When a piece of artwork is brought into our gallery, we first examine it to determine the extent of restoration or cleaning required.  We then decide on the best path forward to restore it as closely as possible to its original condition. Our specialist at Simpson Galleries can restore your items so they will realize the best possible auction results or so they can be enjoyed by your family for generations to come.  Give us a call today.

Video Transcript

Welcome back to Simpson Galleries. My name is Laura Bledsoe and I’m the in-house restorationist and auction coordinator here. Today we’re going to discuss the type of restoration work we offer. Our fine art restoration services are available to our auction customers and to those who own personal pieces that are in need of updating. As a customer, when you bring your artwork into the gallery we’re able to determine the extent of restoration needed. As the consigner, it’s up to you whether or not you’d like to have your piece considered for restoration prior to auction. In some cases, it can help increase the piece’s value and in others it may be easier to let the buyer decide how they’d like to move forward.

Generally, our customers bring in  acrylic or oil paintings that have various condition issues such as: paint flanking, craquelure,  tears and rips in the canvas itself. Sometimes there’s canvas sagging or stretcher bar damage. All of these are issues that we’re able to correct. You have the option to restore your fine art before the items go to auction or you can make the choice to wait for the buyer to decide what they would like to do.

This piece here, in particular, has several condition issues. We’ve got a large tear here in the canvas and a smaller tear here. With something like this what we’ll have to do is reattach the canvas to a firm backing, apply a filler to the missing spaces and apply very subtle inpainting in order to disguise that damage. The necessary time will be spent in order to create the proper hue that best matches your painting. After the inpainting, the final step will be restretching the piece onto its canvas and applying a protective varnish. This will ensure that the work done will last another 50 years.

As the restorationist, it is my job to get these pieces back to their former glory; however, I do try to keep my hand as limited as possible so that what shines through is the artists’ original work.

If you’re interested in these services including fine art restoration and cleaning please contact us at SimpsonGalleries.com.