Restoration work: Lahore Museum to send two more to India for training

48-panel Sadequain mural still languishing in museum basement.

LAHORE:

The Lahore Museum is set to send two more people to India for training in painting preservation so that they can join the team working on restoring the Sadequian mural which was installed at the museum’s entrance. The decision to send additional staff was taken six months ago after detailed documentation of the mural was completed.

Museum officer Uzma Usmani and artist Mumtaz Hussain had been sent to New Delhi from June to August, 2012, to train in oil painting restoration. The officials trained at Indian National Trust for Arts and Culture Heritage’s (Intach) painting conservation facility. Upon their return, Usmani and Hussain started documenting the mural.

Usmani said the board had decided that more people were needed to work on the mural.  “Even four people may not be enough. … Mumtaz and I were the first to be sent for such a training. Even with four people working full time, restoration may take three to five years,” she said.



Conservation Officer Hafiz Abdul Azeem said that Usmani and Hussain were not trained specifically for the mural restoration project. He added it was only when the documentation ended that the administration realised that a conservationist with knowledge of chemicals should be supervising the project.

Azeem said he was made the project manager a month ago. He said he and painter Saeed Ghani will now be sent to Intach for training specific to treating the mural. The two will take along technical reports and detailed mural documentation so that the training is focused on repairing the damaged parts of the mural. The course is four months long.

Lahore Museum Deputy Director Khawaja Khursheed said it was incorrect to suggest that the training Usmani and Hussain had received was not specific enough and that the two people being sent now would get more specialised training.

The 16-member board, he said, had realised early that the task they had set out would be arduous. The plan had always been to send two more people once the first two returned from their training.

Usmani and Hussain will begin the work while Azeem and Ghani will be trained at Intach, he said, adding that clearance for their travel documents had yet to come from India.



“We have also asked for an additional Rs 4million as Rs15 million will not be sufficient to complete this project,” he said.

Segregation of separate area in the museum’s conservation laboratory for work on the mural is almost complete. Restoration work on the mural might start by the beginning of April.

The 48-panel mural, Evolution of Mankind, was installed at the museum’s ceiling in 1973. It was removed about three years ago after a portion collapsed. The panels, each measuring eight feet by six feet, were wrapped in plastic and stored in the museum’s basement.

The mural collapsed from damage caused by exposure to sun. Rainwater and a termite attack had worsened the damage.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2013.