Transcript for Episode 173 – Art Conservator, Restorer + Painter, Tomáš Lahoda (Czech Republic)

Recorded April 16, 2021
Published May 18, 2021

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/art-conservator-restorer-painter-tomas-lahoda-czech-republic/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
Please pronounce your name correctly for me.

Tomáš Lahoda 0:14
My name is Tomáš Lahoda.

Matthew Dols 0:17
And you are a painter and a professor in the Czech Republic, correct?

Tomáš Lahoda 0:23
Yes, yes. I’m also conservator, art restorer.

Matthew Dols 0:28
Fabulous. I have tons of questions about conservation. Okay. But let’s go back a step. So one of the first things I always loved to know about people sort of their childhood, their background, how did they even get into being creative and work in the creative industries?

Tomáš Lahoda 0:43
Well, I was of course, drawing as a child, most of small children to that I was drawing somehow in during the basic school. And my real interested when I really started somehow to paint was at the secondary school when I actually entered the secondary school. And because that was under the socialistic regime, Czechoslovakia at that time, we didn’t really have any access to the Western art scene here in the country. And my only access was actually possibility to visit the American Embassy in Prague. And they had a library there. And in the library, they had some odd magazines are in America and art forum. And I was borrowing these magazines. And somehow, I forgot to return them. And they didn’t mind somehow. So I actually have them till now. And that was my source or inspiration. And another interesting or funny thing is that I had a friend with whom I share all my free time, after when I came home from the school, from the second secondary school. And he was working in a bookshop in the center of Prague, and the bookshop was, they had only technical literature, you know, about engineering, housing, gardening, and that kind of stuff. And every year, at the end of the year, for Christmas, they made a small exhibition of art books from the west. And when the exhibition was finished, it didn’t pay to send the books back. So they just sold them. And we were the first you know, to be on spot. And at that time, it was 1970, I bought three books that really made an impact on me or influenced me. It was a book about pop art. It was a monograph about Andy Warhol, and a monograph about by Lichtenstein. So these three books followed me since then, and actually, I have to say that pop art was one of the main influences on me. Even it was, it was completely, you know, in the situation in the country, it was completely out of time out of, you know, space out of everything, to be interested in this kind of thing.

Matthew Dols 3:36
Okay, well relevant to your work. So I did some research on you and some stuff. One question that popped in my head was, so I’ve been practicing artists for a couple decades, and I’ve been a professor and all kinds of stuff you have done and are also known for doing multiple different styles have worked over the course of your career. My big question is because there’s been this tradition of like, you should pick a style and stick with it and have that be your signature thing. But you seem to have literally sort of run the opposite way. And it seems to have been to your advantage. Now, maybe I’m wrong on that. So like, the question is, like, has the choice to work in multiple styles and multiple techniques have been helpful or detrimental to your career,

Tomáš Lahoda 4:24
I decided to do that. To do works in different styles, and different genres. Somewhere, of course, in the very beginning, I was just painting, each painting it was kind of different, but soon I decided to paint in series. And each series was had a certain thematic, a theme, and also a different style, according to the theme, and as I was interested in different subjects. So these series are these themes. Somehow, we’re covering these different subjects that I was referring to. So it was more or less kind of a conceptual approach. And when I thought it over, then I started to paint the series. So I don’t know if I should mention some of the themes or some of the series.

Matthew Dols 5:22
You’re welcome to. But the question sort of is, like, I’m trying to think, How do I explain this, like the, when I was in school, and even as a professor, I was always telling people, my students, you know, find a style, find a thing, because that’s how you’re going to be know. And that’s how you’re going to sell. That’s how you’re going to get a reputation to get grants and residencies, and all kinds of these kinds of different benefits of a career. So the question is sort of, did you notice that that changing mediums and changing styles was beneficial or detrimental to the growth of your career?

Tomáš Lahoda 5:58
I think it was not always beneficial. I think people didn’t really get it understood, why aren’t changing so much. And that it was exactly the point that they couldn’t, you know, determine that this is really his style, or his way of doing things suddenly comes with something completely different. And so we have like, 10 different artists here. And who is he? Oh, who are they? Yeah, okay.

Matthew Dols 6:27
Well, that’s sort of what I was looking for. Yes. No, I mean, because like, as an American, I, of course, think of the capitalistic things that you know, an art gallery, how have you been represented by galleries? And are you currently represented?

Tomáš Lahoda 6:40
I’ve been represented by two galleries in Denmark, because I lived in Denmark for a long time. So I’ve been represented by three galleries, actually, there. Now, after coming back to Prague, moving to here, I don’t have any representation here.

Matthew Dols 6:59
Because I mean, I’ve worked in art galleries, and we had, you know, artists that would be working in a style and we had people collecting their that style, and then suddenly, they changed and all the collectors were like, I don’t want any of that anymore. And so it, you know, it’s that kind of an issue that I wonder about, because I change styles, pretty, you know, every maybe seven or eight years, I sort of flux into something new, but no, nowhere near as dramatic as you. Yours are very different.

Tomáš Lahoda 7:30
Yes, I’ve made a show at the National Gallery in Prague. And that was actually conceived as an art fair, I think there were 12 different series. And they each were designed like an art fair booth, you know, gallery booth with with design chairs and tables, and then equipped with this with a certain series, so it really looked like exhibiting 12 different artists in a small art fair,

Matthew Dols 8:05
but it was all you

Tomáš Lahoda 8:06
Yes. Okay.

Matthew Dols 8:08
Nice. I also noticed that you use the word cycle to describe your work. I love that word. That is such a better word than series to me. Weird How did you come up with that? Or did you take it from somebody?

Tomáš Lahoda 8:27
I don’t know, I just think there is a big difference between series and cycle

Matthew Dols 8:31
cycle to me sounds perpetual, and ongoing, and sort of sort of cyclical, that gets got the same sort of sick sound in it. Versus series, which to me has a terminating time, like it’s a series begins and ends at a time and doesn’t necessarily relate to something else.

Tomáš Lahoda 8:51
Okay? Or because with some of these cycles, I pick them up. Again, and again, sometime. Not all of them, but some have made them I painted a number of paintings from one cycle, and then a couple of years, sometimes even 10 years away, I didn’t follow, but then, you know, suddenly or not, suddenly, I just picked it up and painted some more paintings within that cycle, in the same style, in the same just kind of made up new versions. So to say,

Matthew Dols 9:29
well, that’s an interesting point. Do you revisit paintings ever? Like so? Let’s say you finish a piece, you exhibit it, whatever it doesn’t sell and that comes back to you. Do you rework it? Or is it still do leave it as from the way it was when you first exhibited?

Tomáš Lahoda 9:45
I leave it, I don’t rework it. It was very seldom that I reworked something, okay. It was more that I was not satisfied with it or I just took it and, you know, worked on it and change it. Maybe not necessarily after it has been exhibited.

Matthew Dols 10:04
Now you have a book that came out of your work about two years ago. 2019? If I’m correct,

Tomáš Lahoda 10:11
yes. I’ve noticed

Matthew Dols 10:13
that in Europe, that having a book of your art is much more prestigious and sort of more important than I’ve seen in other countries. So how, what was the process of getting a book published? Did you propose it was it brought to you the idea brought to you? How did that come about?

Tomáš Lahoda 10:32
It was kind of, because I knew her and I know the publisher, we know each other for a long time. And we have been co working on my catalogs that he printed, or he just co worked on them with me. And they were printed for some other occasions. But somehow, we talked about it for some time and agreed that now it would be time to print a book.

Matthew Dols 11:00
It’s just that easy. You’re just like, yeah, friend, I’m just gonna make a book.

Tomáš Lahoda 11:04
Yeah. But of course, it’s his business. So he’s selling those books. So he must be great. And he was because he has his, his money in it. So he kind of just didn’t, you know, he wouldn’t just take everything to be printed. So, but it was kind of a mutual agreement that he agreed, and me too, and it was kind of time I was 6465, for hospitals. You know, this kind of age? It’s now or never?

Matthew Dols 11:38
Yeah, well, it’s now or at post two humorously that it’ll be published. Yeah. I know, I’m starting to worry about those kinds of things as I’m getting older. So okay, how do you? I’m sorry, if this is a bit blunt, but like, how do you make a living? So like, if you don’t have a current gallery representation? I know you teach you do some conservation work? Do you sell your artwork on a regular basis? Or do you get commit commissions or anything like this, like any other income stream from your art,

Tomáš Lahoda 12:13
not really, art commissions, sometimes I get commissions to make copies, which is maybe more related to my restoration work, or reconstructions of, right now I’m doing two large paintings, which are, which is the condition and the reconstructions of all paintings from one castle, where the wall paintings damaged, there are some area where big parts of the paintings are missing, they asked me to made a possible reconstruction, so that I should paint in the missing scenes. Of course, in the style, you know, it’s a renaissance or paintings from an old castle. And they want to have them next to the originals, just to show the audience how they may have may have looked like. So this is kind of a combination of somewhere between painting commission and restoration commission, because you have to know, you know, I had to find some similar motifs and figure out, you know, they had to be from the same period and so on.

Matthew Dols 13:31
Okay, so I’ve want to know lots about conservation. I’m, my background is photography. So I have a lot of like, archival questions about different mediums and things like that. So like, when you’re doing a conservational work on let’s say, let’s take this one you’re talking about right now. So large scale oil, paintings Renaissance? Do you actually go back and try and get sort of paints, paints and materials of the time? So like, how sort of pure and traditionalist of a conservation do you do? Or do you use contemporary materials? But just done in the style up?

Tomáš Lahoda 14:09
Yes, you’re using contemporary materials. And it’s also one of the How would you say it’s required, so to say, because there should be recognizable difference in, you know, between the original and what’s new, the addition. And even if you maybe couldn’t see it visually, so you should be able to detect it by other means. So, actually, it’s better not to use the original pigments and binding media so that you really come to make kind of a falsification of the original. So we just use, you know, modern materials from nowadays and just Trying to visually fit them in.

Matthew Dols 15:04
Have you ever been approached to do like, like a more of a forgery versus a copy?

Tomáš Lahoda 15:09
Well, I’ve almost not the forgery, but I had a client who came with a painting of Josephine Baker. And she was smiling, you know, with nice white teeth. And she, in one hand, she had a toothpaste. And it was written to space lib Boucher on it, which is kind of a strange thing, you know, he wanted me to overpaint this toothpaste, and to paint a glass of wine, or something as that would somehow match fit boards with Josephine Baker. And apparently, it was an advertisement painting for the toothpaste, you know, and she was smiling there with the white teeth, you know, but he wanted to have a portrait of Josephine Baker. And the toothpaste didn’t really fit through his image. So that was kind of strange. But not really, I didn’t have any forgery case cases now. Copies copies, yes. That were as close as possible. But they were copies.

Matthew Dols 16:20
Okay. When it comes to conservation, so they you were doing conservation work, and you’re a practicing artists yourself. So like, does that affect you? So they are you trying intentionally to use quote unquote, sort of archival materials and things that will sort of last a long time? So like, do those two speak to each other?

Tomáš Lahoda 16:41
No. Okay, I’m usually asked about this, if I use our techniques, for example, old masters techniques, because I have studied them, and I know them. And I don’t, and I don’t even when I do my own painting, you know, I don’t care if, if those colors and I’m just using the last or not, because I wouldn’t do anything. In that case, I would just wait to buy the most, you know, the best colors, the best materials. And you know, I don’t have them all the time in my studio. So I can clearly separate these two things. Of course, it’s good to know the techniques, and I may sometime use something of it. But not deliberately, oh, that I’m using a barog technique to paint a modern painting, you know, if it’s necessary, I use under paintings, which comes from that period, maybe. But otherwise, I can clearly keep it separate. All right.

Matthew Dols 17:42
Do you only do conservation on paintings?

Tomáš Lahoda 17:45
Yes, mostly, I’m trained in mural conservation of murals, paintings, and wooden polychrome sculptures, or paintings is actually what I focus most on.

Matthew Dols 17:59
And majority of the people that come for conservation, because I mean, I think about it, especially like, even with my own little family art collection that we have about how much conservation we’ll do over the years. Do you get families coming with like family heirlooms? Or do you get governments coming trying to do like their their government collections? Like, what are the kinds of people that are utilizing conservationists?

Tomáš Lahoda 18:24
Both or all three? I mean, I get private clients, I get private galleries. And I get museums coming to me, asking me restore the works.

Matthew Dols 18:36
But and then, but do they Garner do they request different results? Because like, I could imagine a museum would say, make it as close to original as possible. Whereas like a family might be like, just make it good enough.

Tomáš Lahoda 18:50
Most of the time, they don’t, they just want to have it restored. And they somehow let me judge what is necessary to do. Sometimes they of course, they may say that they would like to have a shiny, or like a private person. I would like to have it shiny and everything completely retouched. And we can discuss it and I can tell them if my opinion is different. I can tell them and I can argue why I think so. But usually we come to an agreement. Of course, there is a difference when you restore for a museum or for a church. Because church, it’s another client. So you may say that the same artwork coming from the museum would be restored in a different way than the work if it came from the church. Because we are judging you know, the context is different. So in the church, usually they don’t want to have the artworks to just partially, now they want to have them repaired fully. Because the hole in the church should somehow look not, not as if it’s new, but certain losses on an artwork are acceptable in the museum, but not in the church.

Matthew Dols 20:12
My father actually is both a priest and a, he does Russian Byzantine icons. So the whole church stuff is fascinating to me. So the churches will often come with like, a lot of stuff, like they’ll just come and say, Hey, re you know, refinish the whole church? Or is it always just like one piece got damaged? And so they just need it repaired kind of thing?

Tomáš Lahoda 20:37
Yeah, usually, it’s, it’s a painting or a sculpture or a couple of paintings. You know, often they’re very, very damaged, they have been lying somewhere under the roof, for centuries rolled up, you know, and, or if it’s a sculpture, for example, a polychrome sculpture, and there are parts of the polychromy is missing. So in the church, they would like to have it, you know, refilled and retouched while at the museum, they may leave it like that, you know, just the torso.

Matthew Dols 21:08
When you say polychromy, could you explain that a

Tomáš Lahoda 21:12
little bit more for me, a polychromy. That’s the paint. That’s the paint on the wooden sculptures, or even on stone sculptures. So if they are painted, the word for it is polychromy.

Matthew Dols 21:25
I’ve never heard that particular friggin ocular before, but I understand what you’re saying. A wooden painted sculpture only with polychrome. Paint.

Tomáš Lahoda 21:36
Yes. Okay.

Matthew Dols 21:38
How did you even get into conservation?

Tomáš Lahoda 21:41
I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. And before I joined, I went in, it was actually my father’s fault. Because I was painting in the secondary school, and I was painting pop art in my cellar. And my father took me for holidays against them by and I didn’t want to go there. And we went to Slovakia walking in the mountains. And you know, it was like, okay, son, what would you like to do? And I said, Well, maybe add Academy and painting? And he said, Yes, fine, fine. But you will have to quit all this rubbish popper that you are doing and the seller. And I may find you a teacher, because he knew some artists. And he said, I could find you a teacher, and you would have to go to him. And he would teach you how to draw and paint in a proper way. And another thing is that I would recommend you to go for a restoration, not for the painting. I was okay. He said, Well, because if you go to the restoration department, you will be a restorer. You could always live from that. And you can paint if you want anyway. And if you can, you know survive on painting, you can just do it. But if you went to the painting school, you will just be able to paint and if you don’t survive, what will you do? So that was a clever. And a good actually a good advice, because at that time, again, it was under the communist regime. And all the printing schools were terrible at the Academy, so actually, I couldn’t imagine myself going there. You know, they were all kind of like small copies of the professor’s. All the students during the staff have it was kind of, you know, approved by the state. So it was a very good advice I found later on by my father.

Matthew Dols 23:49
It’s excellent advice. Yeah. I mean, I find that in Europe, it’s the sort of activity a sort of master apprentice relationship. And the the, the perpetuation of that is still very ingrained in the educational systems there. I mean, in America, we don’t do that at anywhere near as much. I mean, it does happen a little bit. But here, it’s incredibly important. Like, I went to go for a teaching job and on the application form. So this was like a conversation. Like in the form, it said, What school did you study at? And who, whose studio did you study in? And I’m like, I’m like, I’m American. We wait. We don’t do that. But it’s very important here. I mean, what, why is that continuing? I’m sort of asking because I want to understand the benefits of that sort of system.

Tomáš Lahoda 24:47
I don’t think there is any from my point of view, they still stick to it. It’s strange, because, I don’t know It’s a tradition, I guess. And they still have this belief that this So, personal impact, which of course, may be there, but you could still be open to other points of views and to other impacts. But I was teaching in Denmark at the Academy. And, of course, I had my own studio to I was the leader of the painting attorney here, but I was opened, you know, my students, they could work in any media, they can do videos, if they wanted, they should just ask somebody else for more information, you know, because I did not know so much about video. So it was much more open there. And we were also exchanging students and the teachers or the professors, you know, but here, it’s still somehow I think it’s opening up now to the young generations. But until very recently, it was still this one man show. The leader has the right.

Matthew Dols 26:00
Well, I’ve even been to gallery exhibitions, and even on like the, I don’t even know what it’d be like the price list or the the bio thing about it, it’ll say, so and so studied at this school under this person, it’s like, they’ll even sort of advertise that this person had studied under a particular person. And when I, when I first got here, I was like, What

Tomáš Lahoda 26:21
do I care? I

Matthew Dols 26:22
don’t I just found this artist and who What do I care about who they studied with? As far as I can tell you a print mastering I don’t know, it’s very odd. But of course, I wasn’t raised in it. So

Tomáš Lahoda 26:36
it’s also because you know, some of the teachers they have a certain I mean, they recognize as being good or bad. So if your, his or her pupil, then you are bad or good according to how they are perceived in the public or in the art world.

Matthew Dols 26:53
But it’s a little bit of cult of personality, for sure. Yeah. And it’s a little bit it’s a little bit like in the old days, you know, Renaissance, like, I totally understand that that system makes perfect sense, because there were no proper sort of schools and the way you learned was to be an apprentice. And they seem to you and they just seem to have taken that structure and simply put it into academic instead of coming up with their own idea of how to do it. But I’m not, I’m not saying it’s bad. There’s a magnificent artists coming out of the schools. So I’m not saying that’s wrong.

Tomáš Lahoda 27:29
I was teaching in Brno at the academy there. And it was really, you know, I had fights with another professor just because I could ask his students some questions that he thought was, this is just conceptual rubbish. He’s just painting. So leave him, you know. And that was terrible. Yeah, I

Matthew Dols 27:49
tried to teach in nuts, probably in the Czech Republic. And it’s very interesting how the, it’s a very different academic nature is very different. This whole idea of the, like, you mentioned before, we were recording, like five year contracts, and that kind of stuff, but also the whole format of the academic structure. I don’t even know how better to explain it. It’s just not what I grew up with. And it doesn’t make it bad. So I just want to make it clear for anybody who’s listening, I am not bad mouthing education in the Czech Republic.

Tomáš Lahoda 28:27
What did you teach?

Matthew Dols 28:28
I’m not gonna say private schools, and they were shit. They were the one of the schools, they, at the end of my first semester, they turned to me, said, uh, Matt, we’re not going to renew you for next semester, because the students weren’t happy with your class. And I was just like, well, since when was student happiness, the point of an education, I was miserable as a student. Certainly, if that was true, none of my teachers would have still been there. So I am a bit more of a traditional academic in that I believe that the benefit of education is the learning from the education, not the enjoyment of the learning,

Tomáš Lahoda 29:15
as the problem with a private school is that the students they have much bigger power and voice because they pay for it. So I was teaching at a private school in Prague architecture school, and it was similar, you know, the students were just if they were not satisfied, they can just make a big pressure. And they would usually dismiss the person teaching because the students just assumes that’s our under payments. That’s what we are living from.

Matthew Dols 29:48
Well, I mean, in the private industry, private school industry, the students are the customers. And if the customers aren’t happy, then they’re not going to return to that product base. Place Like, I mean, from a fundamental nature, I understand it. But it’s, it’s like, it’s like the inmates running the asylum kind of thing. Like it’s not going, it’s not going to elevate the status and the quality of the education to make them a better education so that they could theoretically then get better students then theoretically paid charge higher prices, if they’re dumbing down their education to the level of what makes students happy. Oh, I’m so happy. I didn’t say the school’s name. Alright, back to conservation. I’m, I love conservation, I’d watch all the, you know, the BBC shows with conservation in them. And I’ve got a number of friends who do conservatory conservation work. So like, how long does a case an average conservation take for you?

Tomáš Lahoda 30:53
I mean, working on an object. Yeah, that’s very different, because you have so many different cases. And that, you know, the damages are so different. So right now I have a painting a portraits of Iraq portraits, and it’s completely under painted. So there is completely different person, you know, that you see from the one that is beneath the hour painting. So you have to remove all the old paintings. And that’s, besides other damages, there are holes in the canvas and old repairs and so on. So this may take like, two or three months full time.

Matthew Dols 31:37
Okay, wait, I’ve got another question based on what you just said. What’s the most common thing that creates damage, like as I’m thinking it could be whether son, kids running around with scissors, I mean, he’s like, what’s the most common form of damage that you see that you need to repair?

Tomáš Lahoda 31:55
The weather conditions are not really that often. Because the weather condition doesn’t really, not really serious damages occur because of climate. But you’re kind of painting where somebody bumped into it and made a hole, you had a visit. And the kid just, you know, ran into it and made a hole in it. Or often, I get quite a lot of paintings from private people that are dirty, and the varnish is so dark and yellowed, so that you can really see the original painting. So this is just you know, removing the varnish, which is not nothing special. It doesn’t take much time. But the difference is big way.

Matthew Dols 32:47
I’ve always wondered this. Okay, so I’ve seen a lot of these restorations go on. Why is it that old varnish, yellows, I guess, period.

Tomáš Lahoda 32:58
That’s because of the Sun because of sunlight. The varnish itself, yellows with time because of sunlight. Simply

Matthew Dols 33:09
chemical reaction.

Tomáš Lahoda 33:11
Yeah, it’s inbuilt in the properties of the varnish. So the longer period that goes, the more yellow it can get. And the thicker it is, the more yellow it can get, and so on.

Matthew Dols 33:24
So for all practical purposes, basically, what you’re saying is like, every painting that has varnish on it, basically at some point in its life will need to be re varnished.

Tomáš Lahoda 33:35
Yeah, more or less, again, depending on how thin or how thick the vanishes and what kind of varnish it is, because you have different vanishes, and they have a different yellowing potential. So if you use the varnish that gets yellow, very little, then of course, the time would be longer before you would have to re varnish it or remove it and then re varnish it.

Matthew Dols 34:05
And would the thickness of the varnish also have an effect on that as well.

Tomáš Lahoda 34:09
Yes, the thicker the worst. I mean, the thicker varnish, the more yellow it can get. Right?

Matthew Dols 34:17
But would it take longer to turn yellow because it’s thicker?

Tomáš Lahoda 34:21
No, it would actually be quicker because of the thickness. If it’s thin, it may not be yellow that Creek as a thick one.

Matthew Dols 34:30
Interesting. Okay. Have you had any sort of discoveries, you know, sort of like in your time of doing these good these restorations and conservations have you discovered like taking removing old paintings and you find something else underneath it or found something that the owners didn’t even know existed like on the back or tucked in the frame or anything like that?

Tomáš Lahoda 34:52
Yes, that happens. From time to time. I have found a lot of signatures on paintings that were unknown, you know. So that was nice, because suddenly you have a painting by a certain person, or dates dating, that’s the most usual findings. Sometime you find inscriptions, sometime you find, you know, you have a landscape painting underneath is a portrait.

Matthew Dols 35:22
That’s that. That’s big. Yeah.

Tomáš Lahoda 35:26
Then of course, you have to find out why is it? So? Is it by the same author or not? And what should you do if should you leave? You know, stick to the landscape? Or should you remove it and show the portrait? So that’s a difficult decision taking not you have to take a lot of things into consideration. In that case, sometime, there are things like, how to call it in English, you know, you have portraits, and then you have an x to the figure you have his order painted, or,

Matthew Dols 36:03
or the title or something like that.

Tomáš Lahoda 36:06
Yes, but the family crest or shield sign? Yes, yes, yes, she is healed. Yes. And very often, these shields, they were added later to the paintings. And sometimes, you know, it was added wrongly, it was not the correct shield at all. And sometimes it was correct, but it was just added, you know, 100 years later, or 150 years later, because it was a family gallery, and the family wanted to have you there somehow to for the future to show that this person is from this family. So that’s also a questionable thing, you know, if you should leave it, while it may still be right. But on the other hand, it’s later editions. So it breaks the composition, and, you know, so and so. So it’s interesting, then you have to consider that it may have a historical value. And that’s why you may leave it, it is not original, of course, but it has a certain value that you have to consider. Sometime, in this case, for example, they didn’t remove this shield, but they over painted it, so that it is still there. You know, in the future, if you wanted to show it, you can still remove the restorers our painting, and you can see it, if you would prefer the historical value of the not original shield,

Matthew Dols 37:42
when I think about conservationists, and I apologize if you take offense to this, but like, I think there are sort of like two camps of conservationists, there’s the pure traditionalist that like just do everything by hand and very slowly, you know, the, the, the romanticized, like movie version of like a conservationist sitting there with a magnifying glass like touching up little tiny things. And then there’s the other side that are used lots of technology like these, you know, the X rays and the infrareds and, you know, taking pictures and scans and things like this, is it that sort of, like split like that? Or do you all use all these different techniques and tools,

Tomáš Lahoda 38:24
we all use these techniques, both of them, the difference, I think, rather, when you speak about the traditionalist and the rest, or some others may be in the way how they approach, you know, to restoration, and how they do it, not using the X ray or infrared, and so on, but how far they go in retouching, for example, how much they retouch, in which way are they remove what they don’t remove, and so on. While they still may use the same equipment, you know, and they would still have to work painstakingly, you know, with a small brush and a magnifying glass, because you have no technical device to you know, to do that you have to do it by hand, certain things.

Matthew Dols 39:16
As I said, I was like watch these like x rays and UV lights and like all these really interesting technologies that are seeing some magnificent things in artwork that we sort of didn’t know about the past. What do you use most frequently when it comes to those kinds of technologies,

Tomáš Lahoda 39:34
mostly UV light, ultraviolet light, and then infrared and X ray if needed, but you know, you somehow because you have experience. So you would judge when would it be necessary to use x ray or other devices because To find out more? In most cases, you can just see it you know, there’s no problem or question. About so only in certain cases, you will decide to use these devices to help you to somehow analyze the object thoroughly. But normally, like with this overpainted painting that I have right now, use x ray to find out if there is something underneath. But you can see it with your eye simply that it is, and there are some other damages. Like you can see that there was a missing part of paint layer. And that the paint that you see now is in these areas is covering just the canvas, which is a clear sign of that it’s another painting, you know, because normally you can’t see the canvas under the paint layer. The overpainted the original painting, also with the damages where the paint was missing, and they just covered the canvas. So you can see that so you don’t have to check it out for an X ray. And then you made a small sundials. Yes, more, you try to remove a little bit of the top layer. And then you see that underneath there is another layer with a different color. And you may make it you know on a different places on a painting. And thus you can have kind of a summarized image of what’s going on underneath.

Matthew Dols 41:28
One thing I will often wonder about when you’re using these, like the UV and the x rays and whatever other techniques people are using these days for this stuff, do any of those damage paintings?

Tomáš Lahoda 41:41
No, you don’t.

Matthew Dols 41:44
Okay, that was easy? Well, because, you know, they say sunlight damages paintings, and UV light is the same as what are the effects of sunlight. So that’s why I’m sort of wondering, and then of course, x rays, they say like when you humans shouldn’t get too many x rays, because it hurts us kind of thing. So I’m wondering if it in any way has an effect on painting?

Tomáš Lahoda 42:05
Yes, yeah. We call them non destructive ways of analyzing paintings. And then we have destructive ways of analyzing painting. So for example, if you want to know, you know, the layers of the paint, how many layers are there and what kind of colors, so you usually take a small, tiny piece of the paint layer, it’s like, half a millimeter square millimeter that you have to remove from some part of the painting. And that’s already a small, destructive attempt, because you are removing or something, you are destroying an elderly little bit. And then you use this sample. And under microscope, you can see how many layers are there, how thick they are, what kind of pigments they consists of, and so on and so on. And as you can also see if they’re over paintings are not in a certain way. So that’s one of the but all these x rays and UV light, they are actually non destructive.

Matthew Dols 43:09
Okay, do you own all of those technologies yourself? Or do you like share them with others? Or like go to the hospital to get x rays of things done? Like, how is how is it even done? Because I can’t imagine, like going to an X ray company be like, Hi, I’d like to buy an X ray machine like that seems a bit expensive and outrageous,

Tomáš Lahoda 43:30
oh, I don’t have it, I have other stores don’t have them. So if you need this, you know, there are certain labs that can do it. So you just pay for you know, you have to break the word there. And they can do it for you. You pay for it. It’s like a service. So there may be 234 restores that they have it. And they can also make it for you as a service. And then there are some laboratories or conservation workshops in the state institutions that also might offer this kind of service.

Matthew Dols 44:07
Now when it comes to your conservation work, are all of your clients like local, regional, because what I’m the reason why I’m asking you this is because I’m picturing in my head that a conservationist often will be sort of an expert in, let’s say, sort of a region’s corporate type of work style of work, etc. So like, for instance, you probably don’t get conservation work of like, Japanese work kind of thing. So like, is it sort of regional like that? So, you being in Europe, you primarily do conservation work on European art objects? No,

Tomáš Lahoda 44:44
I mean, concerning painting, which I do most, I do everything I do our paintings, Baroque, 19th century modern, it could be from any region. Of course, there may be things that you know if it’s a Japanese worker on paper. I don’t take that because I’m not an expert in paper conservation. And if there is a painting modern painting with the mixed media, where paper may be involved, then I somehow have to figure out if I’m able to do that or not. So you may say, yes, and then I may speak to a paper conservator, you know, just to get the right solution. Otherwise, again, I wouldn’t take it. But modern works of art, they are the most difficult to restore and to take care of,

Matthew Dols 45:35
really, why

Tomáš Lahoda 45:36
not? Because there is no, you know, in the past, all the techniques, they were traditional techniques, they were, you know, given to generations after and they were the same, they had a certain structure, the materials were well known. And now you can use everything, and there’s no method in it, there’s nothing, you know, you can use whatever you like, or people do artists do. And that’s the problem, because the sort of a mixture of things that doesn’t work together doesn’t stick together. They work differently. Under the same condition, certain materials, deteriorate, certain do not, and so on. So that is a very big problem. I’m actually teaching this theoretical subject about the problems of, and restoration of modern art at the Faculty where I’m teaching,

Matthew Dols 46:37
okay, because as a practicing artist, myself, like, so I go to a paint store, an art supply store, and I’ll look around I’m like, there’s a dozen different companies. And they, of course, change their formulations quite often. And there are so many variations within each even each of those because there’s like student grades, semi consumer grade and professional grade, all these different things. I wonder like, as a practicing artist, what can I do to sort of make it easier on the conservators? Should I like, put into the like certificates of authenticity, or in the the purchase thing, like any of the materials, like make a list of the brands that are used make conservation easier in the future? Like, is this something we should even be concerning ourselves with?

Tomáš Lahoda 47:24
Regarding paints, you should of course, buy the best ones. And usually, they are the most expensive ones. So if you follow this, then it’s probably the best way for us conservatives later on. But you can never stick to it always. And no, if you don’t use only paint, if you use other things, mixed media, then it’s again, you know, for example, Tom vessel man, the American pop artist, he made paintings where he used some photographs, or it was cut out from magazines, and it was glued into it. And all this seems very simple, not really a big problem, but, you know, they started to yellow because it was a cheap magazine print. And after a short time, these photo images started to deteriorate while the paint was still fine and looked very fresh. So, the problem is that you know, you have two different materials, which behave very differently. And for example, he was asked whether he would agree on exchange, you know, when they breach when they lose color. The restorers could take them, remove them and put the same image, maybe rephotographed it and print it in a better quality and then put it there instead of the old one. And he said yes, because for him, it was important that the whole painting looked new and have a fresh impression. Some other would say no, no, Robert Motherwell I think he also he made collages and the made cutouts from colored paper and this paper some of the pieces they changed color completely in time, so you have actually completely different composition, you know, color composition. And he didn’t mind he said, It’s okay, you shouldn’t change it. You shouldn’t remove it and put blue paper there while now it’s yellow. It was okay for him.

Matthew Dols 49:40
weigh me it’s an interesting issue the whole like, degradation of work of art over time, because I’ve gone to many museums where I like in art history books, I got to know a piece and then I go see it in reality, and like, edges are curled. Things are faded things have yellowed, and a It doesn’t look anywhere near as sort of polished and beautiful as it like it did in the, you know, the famous photo of whatever it was kind of thing. And so I wonder, like, is that something that can be I don’t know, dealt with? Or should there be a consensus on that? Or do we just like let it be an each artist make their own decision?

Tomáš Lahoda 50:21
Yes. And each owner makes his own decision also. Because, for example, there was a case with Piero Manzoni and his app, Chrome’s you know, these white painted paintings, and he wanted them to be clean, you know, and bright white. And of course, in time, they get dusted, and they get slightly yellowed. And there are cases that in a museum in Holland, they had these men zonies. And they asked one of his comrades, also an artist, who used to overpaint, Manzoni his painting, while Manzoni was living, he was okay. And it was a practice, because they didn’t want the paintings to seem old. So they asked this painter to over painted for them, and he did it because Manzoni would agree on that. And when they did it several times, so the paint was so thick, that it started to cover all the small nuances on the surface, so that Manzoni actually disappeared, you know, and they started to have a different artwork. So suddenly, they stopped, because they realized, oh, maybe we should not do that. And then they talk to a private person who owned similar mansoni painting, and he said, No, I want to have a little bit yellow and dusty, because I prefer the authenticity of the author’s making and touch. And I don’t care about that, actually, he would have liked it to look like new. So they are very different approaches, you know, and what’s better, or you should not always listen to the artist, as a restorer, what he says about his or her work, that’s another thing, you know, because many examples that an artist would after 20 years, they would say something completely different about his own work, then he would have said, you know, when he has made the work

Matthew Dols 52:28
indeed, what what about crackling you know, because there’s the famous thing of like, the old paintings crackling like is that some like, I love the crackling, but it I can understand like, depending on the quantity of crackling a you know, sometimes it can be detrimental to the appreciation of the work, but like is that something that can and or should be in some way repaired or conserved,

Tomáš Lahoda 52:57
usually, we don’t we only repair the crackling, as far as you know, the cracking is lifting up also. So, we just flatten it, flatten the paint layer, but the cracks are still there visible, you know, the net of the cracks is still there, and usually we leave the cracks, then there may be cases where the cracks are really very open. So that the lines are really visible and, and maybe something underneath is showing up maybe the white background or something, then we may consider to slightly retouch it, so that it does not appear that much. So, it is something that is considered to be, you know, they happen with time the cracking, and then you have another type of cracks, which is due to the technique that the artist used. If you use a bad technique, for example, if you have a layer of paint layer that is not dry and use another paint layer on top of it, and this layer dries more quickly than the layer underneath, then cracks can appear because of this. So that’s another type. And this also, you really don’t do anything with simply a bad technique. And that’s hard to do something with, and usually we don’t really touch it or we just leave it as a sign of. That’s how he did it. Okay,

Matthew Dols 54:35
one other thing I want to know about about conservationists, are you also the Do you do research and all this, like go through libraries and try and find out who did something and when and all that like, is that a part of it or is it just about the object itself?

Tomáš Lahoda 54:50
Yes, it is. Because many times, the clients, you know, brings through your painting and they want to know who Could it be who may be the author? Or at least from which period of time if it’s not signed? And in that case, if you say yes, you will try to find something else, then you have to go to archives and to compare the canvas, what type of Canvas is it? How is it under painted with what and so on and so on what kind of colors use the style and so on, because you can have painting that may be you know, from 19th century, and actually it is from 17th century, or vice versa. Because the 19th century, they tried to paint somehow, like in the past, or once I had a case, it was bought in auction. And it was a Baroque, small painting. And when I tried to figure out a little bit more about it, so it was actually print, you know, painted with varnish with brown varnish to cover to make it old. And it was simply cheap print. That was sold in an auction for a lot of money.

Matthew Dols 56:09
That’s unfortunate. Yes. Have you I was gonna say so like, have you had any surprising things like that where they think something’s valuable. But when you go into a store, you find out the opposite or vice versa? Somebody comes in thinking it’s not very valuable. And you find out that has been it is is more valuable?

Tomáš Lahoda 56:28
Yes. Also, I had cases where it was an unsigned, small landscape. And then there were some over paintings and so on. And I found the signature of quite famous artists I made locally. So suddenly, the painting was 100 times more valuable than before.

Matthew Dols 56:52
Nice. Alright, well, let’s wrap this up. The I generally have these two questions. I’m not sure if you’re going to want to be able to answer the first question, but I’ll ask it anyways, I generally ask my guests to offer up three contemporary artists that you think that you’re sort of looking at or watching that you think are somehow noteworthy.

Tomáš Lahoda 57:17
Quite many about one of my favorite is Albert urlan, a German artist, I don’t know if you know the name,

Matthew Dols 57:25
do not off the top of my head, but I’m good with images.

Tomáš Lahoda 57:30
That’s would be one of them.

Matthew Dols 57:32
What kind of work does he make?

Tomáš Lahoda 57:34
Oh, he’s a painter. Recently, he is printing. You know, he’s just drawing lines on a computer, and using these very cheap paint program facilities. And he’s just, you know, using them in an abstract way. And then he prints these images in a very large scale. And then he even add some painting on it himself, you know, adding handpainted. But he has a very different styles, in a way also, he was one of the neuere vilda. In Germany, the group of artists. I think he’s one of the most famous of them all. Then, right now I’m thinking about as I was living in, in Denmark for 23 years, a very good Danish artist called tau r, is living in Germany, I think, in Berlin, in Denmark also, also painting but using very different somehow using pastel is an oil acrylics, using dry pigment with glue. So it’s always very sensitive to the quality of the paint. And the third one, in a way, it’s also strange, maybe, that I was already from the beginning of my involvement with art, I was not very keen of Czech artists, or I was not really. I didn’t look up to any. I like some of them. But as I was so much influenced by pop art, in the beginning, I was much more interested in American art scene as a whole art scene in the West. Then in the local art scene, so should be the third one if I should name. Just now I come to think about Christophe kithara. If you know, I do not in the Czech artists, quite some are really well known in the country, also internationally. But he’s not a painter. Really. He also he makes large installations using a lot of computer rubbish. I mean, computers that are thrown away, so he would just take the ins FIDE and make strange cities out of it and strange creations. And he’s making things also that are moving. You know, he’s made a little boy dressed in normal dresses, and he’s standing up against the wall and banging the head against the wall. So he has a little engine inside so little motor. He’s making funny things and also very kind of a very broad area of different artifacts that he’s making.

Matthew Dols 1:00:36
totally random question that just sort of popped in my head was. So you, you said that early on in your you were influenced by American pop art? Did you ever have any amount of success in America being directly influenced from that?

Tomáš Lahoda 1:00:52
No, not really. I, I had only exhibited two times at America, once in New York in a gallery. And it was a Danish gallery in New York. So they were exhibiting, you know, the Danish galleries were exhibiting their artists in New York. And then, after this exhibition, somebody, somebody have seen it, and they invited me to exhibit the same exhibition that Pennsylvania State University, they have a gallery there in the university. So the show was just moved there.

Matthew Dols 1:01:31
Well, the reason why I ask is because over my lifetime, I’ve moved a lot. So like, I’ve, I’ve moved, I think 19 times since I left my childhood home. And I find that a lot of times people artists think that their best market is where they live. But I find that a lot of times, it’s not where you live, that it’s some other place. I’m sort of just wondering if there’s some relationship between who you were inspired by and who you’re sort of the best market of people interested in your work is

Tomáš Lahoda 1:02:04
not for me, I didn’t really have any anything else in the States. But these two exhibitions, and they were a couple of paintings that were sold. But somehow that’s also maybe it’s my galleries fault, more than they’re mine. They didn’t do more for me over there

Matthew Dols 1:02:23
is possible. Yes.

Tomáš Lahoda 1:02:25
Yeah. But am I because of how markets was in Denmark, because I had three galleries there. And actually, it’s a bit difficult coming back here after so many years, you know, being nearly unknown here locally, because I was away. So it’s difficult to build up a career again, somehow from as if from the beginning.

Matthew Dols 1:02:52
I know the feeling. I mean, I went from being raised in the United States to the United Arab Emirates for six years. And then I now I’m in Europe, and when I gotten to Europe, I was like, Hey, you know, I’m 40 something years old. I’m like, I’ve already got this great CV, and I’ve done stuff and I’m like, you all, you know, like, hey, here, I’m, I’m already something. And they were all like, No, I think you need to like exhibit at a coffee shop or a bar. And I’m like, I think I’m a little past coffee shop and bar in my career at this point. Yeah, I found it personally a little insulting. But yeah, it is a thing that like visiting places like even going long term, so like going somewhere for a year for a residency or something like that’s all fine and good, great experiences and all that but, but moving like when you as an artist, when you move unless you’re already blue chip, and you already internationally known, you’d literally have to start over from scratch, even just I mean, Danish to hear you’re only talking, you know, not even one year still on the same continent more or less. And it’s, it’s, it’s a tough thing. Like, like, for instance, my wife is an accountant. Now, when she decides to get a new job at a new accounting firm, they’ll just go Oh, you have credentials and qualities, you’re a good accountant, great will hire you. And so like, everything’s good. But as artists, we have to like continually re sort of prove ourselves as being quality. Anytime we make a dramatic change, and it’s exhausting.

Tomáš Lahoda 1:04:29
And also, I think that in Denmark and here too, and in Czech Republic, I think that the galleries are more interested in local artists more than if it’s from outside. That’s not really they have to have a certain name already or it’s just a smaller percentage that it’s that comes in and then they move on to you know, the local, the Danish artist would be more interesting than someone from Czech Republic even if The work may be somehow qualitatively on the same level. So just because he’s Danish, it’s somewhat more interesting for the local public.

Matthew Dols 1:05:11
It is very interesting because like when I was in the United States, I didn’t think of it. But like, in the US, I would probably have gone to a gallery and bought a US artist. But of course, the US is so massive, like that’s easy to do there. But I find that in Europe, a lot of people like when they go to a gallery, they will often buy of that region, work. They, I don’t see a lot of galleries throughout Europe. So this is not just Czech Republic, like so in the Czech Republic, the check of the galleries will carried more or less Czech or Slovak or checkers sort of one country away, you know, kind of touching borders. But that’s about it. And it’s in some ways, I think it’s great, because they’re supporting local artists, that fabulous. But on the other side, they’re not really pushing the art buying market to be something bit more elevated, more international, all this kind of stuff. So they it’s a double edged sword. Like it’s great, because as a local artist, I would think that’s fabulous. But on the other hand, I also would like to show in galleries in Italy and Spain and all this, but they’re only going to show Italian and Spanish people but slay it’s a difficult part of the industry.

Tomáš Lahoda 1:06:28
Yeah.

Matthew Dols 1:06:29
That I don’t know how to remedy.

Tomáš Lahoda 1:06:33
I don’t know. Yeah.

Matthew Dols 1:06:36
All right. Last thing, any advice for the next generation? So conservationist, artists, whatever, you seem to have some great advice for.

Tomáš Lahoda 1:06:48
Keep going. You know, for me, it was somehow it’s difficult to have these two parallel practices orientation that I’m doing both. I mean, I’ve been doing painting, sometimes for years, much more and nearly no conservation. Other times it was the other way around. Sometimes it was like that I was doing both at the same time. And it’s difficult to because for the art market, you may be a conservator. And for the conservators, you’re, you know, oh, he’s that artists over there. So you don’t fit into any one of them. Really. It’s a little bit disqualifying you to have these two, at the same time, these two kind of different positions, I think. But it was my choice. And I like both. And I’ve chosen it like that. And I must take the bad things that comes with it as well.

Matthew Dols 1:07:54
Fair enough. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time.

Tomáš Lahoda 1:07:58
Okay, thank you.

Matthew Dols 1:08:03
As many of you know, I have a great disdain for the algorithm that rules our life. But one of the ways that I figured out is that you can be helpful to the podcast is offering a star rating or a comment through your podcast listening device. It is one of the few things that I can have figured out will assist. So if you could take a moment and please go make a star rating or some comment in your podcast, listening device, Apple podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you are, that would be greatly appreciated.

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – http://www.matthewdols.com And the audio for this episode was edited by Jakub Černý. The Wise Fool is supported in part by an EEA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – https://eeagrants.org in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners Hunt Kastner – http://huntkastner.com in Prague, Czech Republic and Kunstsentrene i Norge – https://www.kunstsentrene.no in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes or on our website https://wisefoolpod.com