In the decades before the First World War, Munich was celebrated for its so-called "painter princes"-a tiny group of top-tier artists who set themselves up in grand mansions, turning out wildly popular salon paintings, mythological scenes and portraits of other A-listers. The last of these great artist-aristocrats was Franz von Stuck, one of Europe's most important Symbolist painters, who was also a sculptor, an architect and a designer.
The stunning 80-foot-long concrete frieze, "Exodus and Dance," was created in 1939 and installed in front of the Kingsborough Houses in the Weeksville section of Crown Heights - home to one of the nation's first free black communities - two years later. The historic treasure's etched reliefs depict biblical imagery and dance motifs to convey "spirituality, community and joy," proponents said.
Lloyd Haddad and Keith Wicker emphasize the importance of preservation framing, stating, "When we started in the framing industry in 2006, the idea of archival and conservation framing was still fairly new..."
The restoration by ChatGPT of Niépce's oldest photograph was met with criticism for its inaccuracies, showing AI's limitation in understanding historical context.
"A lot of people say that the varnish should never be removed, that that's a patina that is on the surface of the painting and that it adds to the painting's quality: it makes the painting look better, it makes it look more serious," says Baumgartner.