Dear Editor,
Though I am currently on leave from the National Gallery, I am obliged to respond, as the gallery’s Curator and Director of programmes, to the article in your Sunday, May 25 last edition and your extraordinary supporting editorial of Thursday, May 29, which prominently gave vent to the sensational but unfounded claims of the distinguished artist Bernadette Persaud; unfounded because these are based not on any current knowledge or verified facts that she may have regarding the National Gallery’s operations, or the state of storage and conservation of our art collection, but on selective editing of the facts at her disposal.
An indication of the exaggerated inaccuracy of her complaints and of your coverage is the enlarged photograph which illustrates your article, showing cracks in a Persaud painting. This photo appears to have been used to lend credibility to the criticisms of the paintings stored at Castellani House, when in fact it is one which the artist brought from off the premises for her recent exhibition at the gallery.
Given these and other inaccuracies in the article and accompanying editorial, I feel it obligatory to further respond to these accusations. The two most outlandish claims are:
1. Wood ants damage of painting at State House: The artist’s bold claim that her painting was ‘infested’ with wood ants (termites) at no less a site than State House, is completely untrue. As gallery Committee Chair Mr Albert Rodrigues said, the problem with Mrs Persaud’s painting has been woodworm, inherent in the plyboard used to make both the stretchers and the frames for the artist’s early paintings which we have in the National Collection.
State House is further the official residence of our Head of State and is highly maintained by an expert housekeeping staff. The painting itself (‘The Lotus of July’, not Locus as your article states) could be seen in the background of many a press conference hosted by President Jagdeo in the main reception room at State House. Any incidence of wood ants – given the patterns of migration of these insects – would have been soon seen and would not have been left to ‘infest’ a painting in such a prominent place.
Your editorial dared to use President Ramotar’s comments about State House termite damage circa 2012 to somehow justify Mrs Persaud’s claims. In reality, President Ramotar’s remarks related to the structure of the State House building which needed extensive repair from 2012, and not to its contents then, or two years earlier in 2010, when the gallery removed the painting from these premises (not ‘sent back’, as Mrs Persaud is allowed to say twice in your article).
2. ‘Termite-infested’ painting propped up and neglected for four years: The artist’s astounding claim is that this painting was returned to Castellani House where, though “infested” with termites, it was “propped on” a wall where “nothing was done to it for four years” and where, according to your editorial writer’s amplification, “it was just left to deteriorate”!
Was Mrs Persaud able to validate this unbelievable scenario, other than by her torrent of words? How could your editorial writer simply reproduce such a tale without any critical examination of what she was saying? Was she asked for evidence to support her claims of the four-year neglect of the propped up painting? The reported claim that she ‘saw’ her work is followed by her direct speech describing the “tattered” frame, “so soft it could have broken off.” The impression is therefore given that the artist had indeed seen her painting hanging tattered on a frame on the point of collapse, which the gallery is accused of allowing to happen over a four-year period.
Your editorial writer further embellishes this by saying that this matter was only “discovered” after Mrs Persaud came to the gallery earlier this year! In other words, put in a room while “infested” with termites, then forgotten until the artist turned up and managed to save her work!
This entire scenario is a disgraceful misrepresentation. Even more regrettable is that this was promoted by careless reporting at the very least, as well as biased and irresponsible editorializing. The facts however are these:
i) Once the painting was returned to the National Gallery in 2010 it was sprayed to stop the woodworm damage and to destroy any further woodworm in the frame and stretcher.
ii) The painting was later taken off of the stretcher and laid flat, with a protective covering beneath and over it, on a large table in our secure, restricted access, temporary workroom in the gallery building.
iii) Our framer then produced, to our specifications, a stretcher and frame for this painting; the date of this (c 2011-12) can easily be provided from our records.
The above hardly constitutes abandonment to destruction by ‘termites’ over four years in a room at the National Gallery. Further, our recent completion of the repair of this painting, which in the interim was safely stored as described immediately above, in no way qualifies our actions, I repeat, as ‘neglect’ allowing its virtual destruction by ‘termites’.
3. In response to some of the artist’s other statements, please note:
i) “[The gallery is] battling with termites”: where and when was the latest battle? The facts however are:
a) The gallery building has had no incidence of termites since c 2006 when our second major phase of renovation began. A leading extermination company treated wood to be used and the few related areas of the building prior to the contractor’s renovations ; additionally all remaining soft wood and ceiling panels were removed and the latter replaced by gypsum board which deters termites.
b) Our storage garages a short distance from the main building have had no incidence of termites since the recommended aromatic woods, which deter termites, were used for our storage racks installed c 2000.
c) Curatorial Assistant Koama, who is acting in my absence, confirmed that there had been no sudden re-emergence of termites in the gallery building or damage to Mrs Persaud’s paintings and none as a result were “eaten up” in any way.
ii) ‘Cracked painting’: This referred to the fine cracks appearing on the surface of one of the artist’s National Collection works, which had been hung until recently in the relative stability of an air-conditioned interior room in the Office of the President. This in itself is instructive as cracking is caused less by heat than by changes in temperature over periods of time.
Cracks may also form, however, if oil paints are not used carefully enough, as illustrated in your photo of the artist’s work which was brought to the gallery, and visible in others of her own collection in the recent exhibition. Oil paint is a notoriously slow-drying medium whose layers can dry at different rates, with the top (usually thinner) layer forming cracks from the drying of the slower layers below.
Though I cannot speak for the conditions in which Mrs Persaud has kept her work, the gallery’s five other oil paintings by the artist, kept in our apparently deleterious “hot rooms,” have developed no cracking of their surfaces. In fact in the limited areas of temporary storage in the gallery building, the stable conditions that we have maintained have been key to the preservation of works. Thus the same sound reasons militating against air conditioning in the gallery building (as Mr Rodrigues noted) would also apply to our storage facilities.
iii) “Poor state of paintings” and “plenty neglect”: If these latter comments were indeed accurate, the numerous exhibitions of National Collection works, stored on our premises, which we have presented over the years on a variety of themes and artists, would not have been possible, as they would not have been fit to be brought out of storage and seen by the public.
iv) ‘Access denied’ to art works: Mrs Persaud’s claim that access to her art works has been denied “for some time” is also untrue. I have never, as the Head of the Gallery, received a request from her or any representative of hers for access for herself, her students, or the press, let alone refused any such requests.
4. The issues raised by the artist and amplified by your editorial writer imply serious dereliction of our duties and responsibilities regarding the preservation of the National Collection; the latter opining that (apparently) hanging art works according to the advice of a ‘conservationist’ [sic] was “all that (had) been done…” at the gallery regarding the preservation of works. Again the facts are these:
i) Storage garages 2005: Further to the January 2005 flood waters, which stopped short of our storage racks, these facilities were further upgraded by raising the levels of walkways, steps and storage floors, the latter also levelled and tiled. Funding for this was received from our government and also from the US government’s Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation, with work beginning in 2006 in tandem with phase 2 of the gallery building renovation project. Subsequent upgrades have added shelving and drawers for the storage of small and medium-scale works and works on paper, and added electrical points for increased lighting.
ii) ‘Transitioning’ of building: A year before the 1997 visit of the US conservator we had already decided that, in dismantling the many double walls and ceilings necessary to treat termites, we would at the same time refurbish the building (1997-99) by dismantling all remaining fitments and structures from this former official residence to open up its spaces to the maximum, to best display the art collection including many large-scale works.
iii) ‘Framing policy’: We have been constantly aware of these issues further to ‘inheriting’ works (that is, acquisitions prior to the gallery’s founding in1993) some of which had substandard frames or stretchers. Further, as late as December 2013 I noted to Curatorial Assistant Koama that an expensive painting being considered for purchase would have to have its purchase price reduced by the cost of our replacing its defective stretcher and frame prior to its inclusion in the collection. We therefore have not needed a ‘new policy’ on framing and certainly not further to Mrs Persaud’s alarums being raised.
iii) Conservation specialists: UK and US museums are unrealistic as sources for ‘voluntary’ services, as budget cuts in culture in these countries have forced many museums to cut back or in some cases close their conservation departments; indeed, one of the big three institutions named in your editorial had a crisis with its stored collection some years ago, which contracted conservators had to be brought in to address.
This ironically is very little different from what our (by comparison very young and severely understaffed) National Gallery has done with our two conservation projects, where specialists were contracted to work on our collections.
v) Conservation training via foreign agency support: In aiming to provide the needed skills for current and future gallery staff (as we had done on our previous conservation projects), an introductory conservation training programme draft proposal will be soon finalised for active consideration by a facilitating agency, which in communication some months ago reiterated their keen interest and their ability to assist in this matter.
Had Mrs Persaud wished to genuinely and in good faith shed light on important issues at the National Gallery, she need only have raised such issues with Committee Chair, Mr Rodrigues, for discussion and updated information, rather than announcing her complaints about the gallery at the opening of her exhibition at the very site.
Yet Mrs Persaud was displeased enough to speak to invited guests and the press, then and later, surely knowing that she was not apprised of recent information or evidence on issues about which she was complaining via her sweeping accusations, very little of which had any basis in fact.
While the nature, timing and the occasion of Mrs Persaud’s public remarks are unfortunate, I expected a far more professional and fact-based approach from the Stabroek News regarding such serious, indeed denigrating, statements being made in your article and subsequent editorial.
The power and authority of print is astonishing, and once published in a newspaper, information is invariably believed. And when that newspaper is the Stabroek News, with a reputation well beyond our shores as the leading ‘independent’ newspaper in Guyana, it is its professional duty, I submit, to diligently pursue the origin and substance of its sources. It should further respect the principle of balanced reporting by seeking authoritative responses, for the sake of its credibility and the integrity of all concerned, prior to public broadcast in print.
Yours faithfully,
Elfrieda Bissember
Editor’s note
We did seek a response from Castellani House on this matter, and in the absence of Ms Bissember we spoke to Chairman of the National Gallery Committee, Mr Albert Rodrigues.
