UK hosts National Gallery of Zimbabwe manager

team with conservator Rachel Baker and curator Kerryn Greenberg on a museums professional exchange programme.
After their five-day visit, the National Gallery’s conservation manager Lillian Chaonwa had the opportunity to travel to London where she was exposed to the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Stores and the British Museum.
Having first-hand entry into the spaces of one of the world’s greatest art institutions was a profound experience with access into the painting studios, conservation studios, conservation science laboratory, library and photographic conservation.
The whole experience of her visit to the Tate institutions and the British Museum added so much value to her position and responsibility of caring for the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
She also had the honour of touring the Sainsbury African Galleries with the curator, Chris Spring. She toured the display areas where traditional, contemporary art and ethnography objects are displayed and new projects are underway to present the exhibition in a better way.
Currently, efforts are being made by the curator to present the contemporary and traditional African art together in the context of material, theme and geographical areas. Co-ordinator of World Collection Programme Siobhan O’Leary and Lidia Bravo of Tate National joined her.
The professional exchange programme between the two institutions was paramount in adding value to our collection and more so adding to the resource materials that will help the National Gallery to achieve a recognised standard in its execution of conservation of collections tasks.
Our gratitude goes to Kerryn Greenberg and Rachel Barker who through the World Collections Programme donated conservation materials inclusive of acid-free paper, gloves and conservation light and the Tate for donating reference books, catalogues, conservation study books as this will also boost literature in our library.
Rachel Barker, who commended the visit, said: “It was Tate’s pleasure to host National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s collection/conservation manager, Ms Lillian Chaonwa, for one week as part of the World Collection Programme-funded exchange programme.
“Lillian spent four days with Tate Conservation Department staff expanding her knowledge on preventive and practical conservation of works of art. In return, Lillian shared her experiences of working in her museum, giving a presentation on the highlights of her varied collection. This was very much a mutually beneficial development opportunity for both institutions.”
The conservation manager’s first session was in the painting studio where she saw first hand an intern repairing a 19th century painting which was damaged by flooding and lost one fifth of its painted canvas.
Steps were shown to consolidate some of the flakes and cleaning with the ideal chemicals such as saliva, isopropanol, a hot needle and a hot table. In the Sculpture Conservation Studio Lillian was introduced to the cleaning of stone sculptures by using sponges and detergents in water or a spongy eraser and also solvent and jell to pull out oil on sculptures. Good examples were drawn from Henry Moore’s very small bronze sculptures to the monumental wooden sculptures. Great emphasis on wearing vinyl gloves was stressed when handling sculptures as sweat goes through cotton gloves.
One of the most sophisticated departments visited was the Conservation Science Room with Dr Browny Ormyby. The lab is used for analysis of materials used in several works and focuses mainly on requests from curators on particular films. With Kevin Miles he demonstrated the conservation of frames and the different types of glass useful when protecting artworks from light especially when there is no UV protection.
At the British Museum Harry Persaud guided Lillian into the Library and Photographic Conservation where she was shown how to store photographs, prints and drawings.
Also noted was that the conservation manager must be aware of anything that goes into the museum and any event happening in the museum has to be known and recommendations given by the department.
This will help curb the spread of pests and other agents of deterioration to collections, which are necessitated by the movement of people and other goods. Lillian had the opportunity to give a talk on her experience at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and the one-week experience at the Tate institutions. She also went out to the Barbican Art Gallery and viewed an exhibition by female artist Lynette Yiadom Boakye.
Of her journey Lillian said: “All the colleagues whom I met during my time in London were very ready and happy to share their knowledge and experience with me. I would like to thank the curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Mr Raphael Chikukwa, for his co-ordination with this programme that resulted in my visit to Tate.”