Date of Award
8-2025
Access Control
Open Access
Degree Name
Conservation of Art and Cultural Heritage and Conservation Science and Imaging , M.A./M.S.
Department
Art Conservation Department
Advisor
Emily Hamilton
Advisor
Fiona Beckett
Department Home page
https://artconservation.buffalostate.edu
First Reader
Rebecca Ploeger
Second Reader
Jiuan Jiuan Chen
Third Reader
Patrick Ravines
Abstract
Luis Tomasello’s Atmosphère Chromoplastique No. 106 (Acc.#K1964:22) is a large (39” x 39” x 3.4”) painted relief composed of a 15 by 15 grid of two hundred and twenty-five wood cubes affixed to a reinforced hardboard support. Tomasello (1915-2014) was born in Argentina and emigrated to France in the late 1950s, where this work was created in 1963. This painted relief is one of the earliest extant examples of Tomasello’s career-spanning Atmosphère Chromoplastique series and was acquired by the Albright Knox Art Gallery—now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum—only a year after its completion. The piece bears witness to a period of important evolution in both Tomasello’s visual vocabulary and the commercial manufacture of synthetic artist’s media in the twentieth century. The examination and technical study of Atmosphère Chromoplastique No. 106 revealed both aesthetic and structural condition concerns that were inconsistent with the artist’s original visual and conceptual aims: extensive misalignment of serial components, visual incongruity of historic replacements, and significant soiling and discoloration of white-painted surfaces. The ensuing treatment, particularly the cleaning of the white synthetic emulsion paint, engaged directly and deliberately with the balance between inherent material vulnerability and the surface qualities essential for the intended experience of the relief. Archival research, multiband imaging, and scientific analysis with x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), derivatized pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (py-GC-MS), and polarized light microscopy (PLM) were all essential components in the construction of a nuanced understanding of No. 106 that steered the conservation of the work.
Recommended Citation
Wilkins, Grace. 2025. The Study and Treatment of Luis Tomasello's Atmosphère Chromoplastique No. 106. Master's Thesis, SUNY Buffalo State University.
