Your Art Has Enemies! Protect Your Art Through Art Preservation Techniques!

and, how Arete' Art has your fine art nature photography covered front and back...

Almost everyone has been to a museum or gallery displaying art that is decades, centuries and even thousands of years old. Often the art is cracked, faded, partially decomposed or splotched with mould or insect damage. Art treasures are often lost to their environmental enemies over time. Our experiences with our own families photographs, antiques and textiles often have a similar story and don’t require centuries or even decades to occur.

The purpose of this page is:

Inherent Faults

Often the materials used to create artwork are themselves destructive, such as acidic inks and papers. The foundation of creating art should include using art materials that do not rapidly degrade and decompose over time in a normal viewing environment. Sometimes non-archival materials can be stabilized, but, often there is little that can be done to stop the inevitable deterioration of the art work.

All Arete Art photographic prints are produced by the artist, using lab-tested, museum grade archival pigments and paper. Mat and mount board, tapes, and glazing are also tested and acid-free, museum quality.

The archival fine art photography papers are selected not only for their exemplary image stability, but also for the ability to produce extremely rich color and detail faithful to the original image. With proper care, the pigment and paper combinations used, are rated to last 75 years or more without noticeable fading.

Light

Light is particularly hard on paper prints. It accelerates chemical oxidation and the breakdown of paper. Ultraviolet or UV light is the most damaging because of its short, high energy wavelengths.

Arete Art uses expensive, high-end acrylic glazing for all framed art prints. This glazing is stronger than normally used glazing and adds structural integrity, chemical and scratch resistence to the art photographs.

Heat

Heat is the second most damaging enviormental factor, especially for photographs. Heat also speeds up oxidation, embrittlement of paper and textiles as well as accelerating mold growth and biological activities.

Common sense would then dictate to avoid as much heat exposure to your art and textiles as possible.

Relative Humidity

Many artworks are mounted on substrates that contain high amounts of water. These materials are hygroscopic, having an affinity to take on water. The moisture content of these materials is always changing according to their environments’ relative humidity. High relative humidity speeds up chemical reactions and deterioration of paper and textile fiber. Molds and biological pests also thrive in moist environments and fading is accelerated.

Pollution

The three primary environmental pollutants that damage artwork include:

1. Sulfur Oxides, particularly sulfur dioxide. These come from the burning of fossil fuels, e.g., car exhaust, and ultimately form sulfuric acid, which in combination with UV light is especially hard on paper and textiles.

2. Nitrogen Oxides, particularly nitrogen dioxide. Also a product of the burning of fossil fuels, it ultimately forms nitric acid, a strong oxidizing agent.

3. Ozone, normally generated by the chemical action of sunlight on smog and the oxygen molecule in the upper atmosphere. Ozone is also a powerful oxidant and a frequent cause of fading in pigments and dyes.

Biological Enemies

Insects which attack art on paper and textiles feed on the materials in a frame package such as starch paste, the emulsion of silver gelatine, dye and chromogenic photographs, or nest and hatch larvae in the fibers. Only by sealing the edges of prints and backs of paintings and glazed artwork can these crawling and flying insects be stopped.

Arete Art's prints are sealed around the edge of the glazing, mat, print, and mount board package to keep out atmospheric pollutants, dust and insects. The mounting board and glazing are impermeable to gases and resistant to moisture.

Improper Display, Handling and Storage

Storing art, especially fine art prints under no or low-light conditions and low heat and humidity will greatly add to the life of your art. Handling prints with clean cotton or nylon gloves will keep fingerprint oils and acids away from images. Never fold a piece or leave it rolled for extended periods of time. Two dimensional art should lay and be transported flat. From time to time closely inspect your art work. Acid free storage and display materials, including those in photo albums should always be used if conserving your art and family's historical record is important. One such source of archival materials is Light Impressions.

All photos should be framed using conservation quality mat and mounting boards. This will ensure that a photo’s emulsion does not touch the glass. If it does, temperature and humidity changes may cause it to stick. This can potentially ruin the image. Arete Art uses acid-free mat and mount boards to separate and protect all photographic art prints.

Caring for your Arete Art Prints is mostly about choosing a good location to hang them. The main enemies of all types of artwork are; direct sunlight, air pollutants, heat and humidity. Avoid these as much as possible, and your prints should remain vibrantly colorful for generations.

Fine Art Conservation Framing

Conservation framing techniques ensure the quality, life and financial value of art prints are preserved. Acid free framing materials and glazing help prevent the deterioration and color fading of prints over time usually associated with offset poster prints and other non-preservation grade materials.

Valuable fine art prints should never be permanently mounted – especially using acidic, or heat activated materials. Arete' Art uses an acid-free, non-permanent method which still secures the fine art photographs. Should you ever wish to re-mat or re-frame your Arete' Art photographs, you can easily remove them from the current mounting materials with no damage to the fine art photographs.

What Fine Art Conservation Techniques and Materials does Arete' Art use?

Paper and Pigments: Arete Art uses extremely light stable pigments. Acid free, coated papers are combined with the pigments to produce rich and very long-lived prints With proper care, the pigment and paper combinations used, are tested and rated to last 75 years without noticeable fading or color shifts.

Mats: Arete' Art uses Crescent Alpha-Cellulose Mat board for all prints. These mats are manufactured using chemically buffered wood pulp fibers and are acid-free and lignin-free. They meet conservation standards set by the Fine Art Care and Treatment Standards organization (F.A.C.T.S.).

Mounting: All fine art photographs are perimeter mounted with conservation quality acid-free paper adhesive tape. The print and mounting strips are attached to the acid-free backing board in what is called a T-mount.

Glazing: Arete Art uses expensive, high-end acrylic glazing for all framed photographic art prints. This glazing is stronger than normally used glazing and adds value and structural integrity to the art piece. It weighs less than glass and is chemical and shatter resistant to protect artwork during shipment and cleaning.

Extra Touches: Fine art nature photographs are sealed around the edge of the glazing, mat, print, and mount board package to keep out atmospheric pollutants, dust and insects.  This adds greatly to the archival life of the fine art nature and contemporary photographs.

The photographic art prints come ready to hang with the attached high-quality hanging wire and hardware. Each fine art photograph comes with a certificate of authenticity that is mounted on the back.

How do I care for the Clear Acrylic Glazing used?

These protective panes provide a crystal-clear window for your fine art photographs. The panes are half the weight and 5 times more impact-resistant than standard framer’s glass and highly chemical and scratch resistent. In the unlikely event an impact does break the pane, it will not shatter into sharp pieces and is much less likely to damage either your artwork or you.

Maintaining the optical clarity of your high quality acrylic glazing is easy: