So tomorrow I'm picking up a poster that's been backed and restored. The gallery owner who handled the work have told me that some water damage is not repairable. I received an interesting note from him which I am going to cut and paste below. Would you agree with his statement on water damage/bleaching?
"The unavoidable fact...is that stains on vintage paper whether water or solvent in origin are almost never completely removable on vintage paper.
We've had years of experience of poster restorers both UK and US and you need to be aware that some US backers in previous years have employed quick-fix make it look mint cowboy techniques (bleach, spray) that have come back to haunt the hobby there. These are not part of the arsenal of a responsible restorer, certainly not of a museum-trained conservator the kind we work with.
I've yet to meet a UK paper conservator who will use bleach on vintage paper. I even saw a warning posted on the use of bleach by a US restorer last year. Some of the border stains/spots were so dark on this poster that no amount of bleach would have removed them completely, certainly not before the paper fibres had disintegrated. In the colour areas, acetone would simply strip the colours off. Soaking and a vacuum table are used to chase out as much as possible of the water-based stains, and industrial metholated spirits the spirit-based stains. Vintage paper of this kind is generally very robust to acceptable techniques, generally not to the questionable...
If you feel the need to have the borders oversprayed, then of course you can have that done in the States, but it needs thinking about. Opinion's turned against spraying, even in the US in the last couple of years, with concerns over disguised damage, protection of buyer confidence and the Dorian Gray-like disintegration of cosmetic work from previous years (which I've personally been told about by a leading US dealer)."
What thoughts chaps? Has anybody had any success with bleaching/removing water stains from vintage paper?
