Index Magazine

Surface Tension: A Modern Japanese Painting Finds New Life

January 28, 2021
Index Magazine

Surface Tension: A Modern Japanese Painting Finds New Life

A woman wearing a white shirt and gray pants stands over a large-scale abstract painting in a lab. She applies a white material to the painting using a long slender tool.
Conservation fellow Ruby Awburn uses a miniature heated spatula to treat the painting Fuyu, by Japanese abstract painter Kumi Sugaï.

The remarkable 1960 painting Fuyu (“Winter”), by Japanese abstract painter Kumi Sugaï, was recently discovered to be in perilous condition. Join us for a conservator’s-eye view of the work with paintings conservation fellow Ruby Awburn, who employed bold techniques to successfully resurrect this dramatic painting, in collaboration with curators Mary Schneider Enriquez and Rachel Saunders. 

Led by:
Ruby Awburn, Richard I. Shader Fellow in Paintings Conservation, Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies

Rachel Saunders, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art

Mary Schneider Enriquez, Houghton Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

Work explored:
Kumi Sugaï, Japanese, Fuyu, 1960. Oil on canvas. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Samuel M. Kootz, 1972.2. © Kumi Sugaï/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

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