More MoMA Masterpiece Makeovers

The Museum of Modern Art decided that transparency was the best policy during its recent conservation of Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", one of its most iconic works. MoMA provided continuing updates about the progress of that restoration on its website.

But the museum has been more discreet about its facelifts for other aging modern masterpieces. When I had asked her in early July about why Matisse's "The Swimming Pool" had been off view for so long, Ruth Kaplan, MoMA's communications head, e-mailed this enigmatic reply:

Our response to your question is: With more than 150,000 works in the collection, not all can be on view continuously. There are a number of factors that determine what is on view at any given time.

MoMA's chief curator of painting and sculpture, John Elderfield, who on Tuesday candidly described to me the reasons why the Matisse had vanished, also provided details about important restorations already underway:

I've been talking to conservation about a program of dealing with major works. We have a Matisse list. We've almost finished The Piano Lesson, which is why that's not on view. The discolored varnish has been taken off. We've been getting off some of the wax that came through in the reline, and all the old inpainting has come off. What's left to do is to make some decisions about any restoration, because there were some losses. Some of them have to be filled in.

We took the Beckmann triptych down, and that's very much changed. It's much brighter. So that's going to come back. And the Ensor "Tribulations of Saint Anthony" has been redone. The reason these things were never done before is that they've never come off the walls. And I think you have to make some choices here. It seems to me one has to accept the fact that it's important to do this and when they come back, they're going to be much better than when they left.

Or, at least, different.