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Vibrant details are now visible in the paintings forming four of the ceiling’s 100 square coffers. 'As you clean these, the details come out. The animals actually have shadows, and you see touches of blue and orange in the duck,' noted Andrea Chevalier, senior painting conservator with the Intermuseum Conservation Association. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

Oberlin museum ceiling cleaning reveals artwork, poetry

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
Vibrant details are now visible in the paintings forming four of the ceiling’s 100 square coffers. 'As you clean these, the details come out. The animals actually have shadows, and you see touches of blue and orange in the duck,' noted Andrea Chevalier, senior painting conservator with the Intermuseum Conservation Association. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.
Vibrant details are now visible in the paintings forming four of the ceiling’s 100 square coffers. ‘As you clean these, the details come out. The animals actually have shadows, and you see touches of blue and orange in the duck,’ noted Andrea Chevalier, senior painting conservator with the Intermuseum Conservation Association. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

OBERLIN, Ohio (AP) – The ceiling of a northeast Ohio art museum is being cleaned for the first time in nearly 100 years, revealing forgotten artwork and poetry.

The Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria reports workers have been cleaning the ceiling at Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College for about two months. The ceiling hasn’t been cleaned since 1917 when the museum was built.

A Cleveland conservation nonprofit began the process in August. The two months of work has exposed gold leafing, poetry and paintings of animals, musical instruments and foliage.

Museum Director Andria Derstine tells the newspaper the art on the ceiling hadn’t been visible for decades, but the museum staff finally made plans to clean it in 2012.

The cleaning and restoration is expected to be completed in the spring.

Information from: The Chronicle-Telegram, http://www.chronicletelegram.com

Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-10-11-14 0702GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Vibrant details are now visible in the paintings forming four of the ceiling’s 100 square coffers. 'As you clean these, the details come out. The animals actually have shadows, and you see touches of blue and orange in the duck,' noted Andrea Chevalier, senior painting conservator with the Intermuseum Conservation Association. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.
Vibrant details are now visible in the paintings forming four of the ceiling’s 100 square coffers. ‘As you clean these, the details come out. The animals actually have shadows, and you see touches of blue and orange in the duck,’ noted Andrea Chevalier, senior painting conservator with the Intermuseum Conservation Association. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.