Photo courtesy of Elise Grenier
Art conservator Elise Grenier has been up close with some of the oldest and most renowned works of art in the world. From this vantage, she attempts to slow the effect of time on precious, albeit deteriorating, works of art, many of which are discovered only by happenstance; it’s a “constant uncovering” of obscure works hidden by previous renovations, she says. From grand palaces like the Santa Maria del Fiore—commonly known as the Duomo—in Florence, to historic plantations and an Art Deco airport once deemed “the air hub of the Americas,” her work has taken her to some far-flung corners of the world.
For our meeting, Grenier—relentlessly passionate about educating people about ethical conservation—brings along a sagging tote of materials and visual aids including hardback books, photographs to illustrate before- and after-restoration completion, and example reports.
“I want to dispel the notion that conservation is about retouching. If it doesn’t detract from the rest of it—and it’s stable, it’s healthy, we’ve prolonged its life—why put our own work into it?” —Elise Grenier
The Louisiana native specializes in conserving fresco murals, an inevitable result of thirty-five years spent learning and working as a conservator in Italy. After she collected her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts and art history from LSU, she moved to the global hub of fine art conservation and restoration: Florence. There, Grenier added two more degrees to her repertoire, allowing her to “touch the really big stuff,” she says, and hone her craft by studying and conserving Renaissance works. She worked for a few of Florence’s biggest conservation conglomerates before forming her own business in 2001, which provided flexibility to work dually in Italy and the United States.
In Louisiana, Grenier has lent her expertise to several large-scale restoration projects, including the restoration of the Huey Long-era murals in the Louisiana State Capitol annex, St. Joseph Church in New Orleans, the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, the murals in LSU’s Allen Hall, and Whitney Plantation.
Art conservation is more of a science than an art in itself, according to Grenier. Though she happens to be an artist in her own right, she explains that artistic ability has less to do with the practice of conservation,, than does evaluation, research, and method testing. Aesthetics are the least of her concerns when it comes to conservation efforts; in this discipline, artwork is viewed as a living thing, and the first priority is to prevent further damage or decay. Grenier compares the methodology of conservation to medicine; she considers all possible types of treatment, and must administer tests in trial-and-error fashion in order to help diagnose the best course of action.
The process is not a brief one. Sowing the seeds for new projects can often begin ten or twenty years before they’re actually brought to fruition, slowed by the time needed to raise funds or secure the site of the work on the National Register of Historic Places. Grenier does an initial examination of a work, documents damage, and evaluates the best course of action to conserve it. Beyond her contextual knowledge of art history and centuries-old artistic processes, her job involves analyzing how chemical adhesives will react with paint composition. Even when retouching is necessary, Grenier’s approach is always: the less interference, the better. Her work has to be distinguishable from the artist’s, and her work must be reversible as conservation and restoration methods evolve over time.
“Sometimes I prefer to leave a testimony to its age, because we’re not trying to disguise its age,” said Grenier. “I want to dispel the notion that conservation is about retouching. If it doesn’t detract from the rest of it—and it’s stable, it’s healthy, we’ve prolonged its life—why put our own work into it?”
Elise Grenier is based in New Orleans, Louisiana. To find more of her work, visit grenierconservation.com.
In January, Grenier will be profiled on LPB’s Art Rocks, the weekly showcase of visual and performing arts hosted by Country Roads publisher James Fox-Smith. Tune in Friday, January 31 at 8:30 p.m. or Saturday, February 1 at 5:30 p.m. across the LPB network. lpb.org/artrocks.
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