This year the Cincinnati Art Museum is again supporting the Contemporary Arts Center by lending a book to their newly opened exhibit, “Tania Candiani: Sounding Labor, Silent Bodies”.  The book is really one print, a panorama accordion-folded and bound as a book.  When unfolded, what appears to be small (about 6 inches by 9 inches) when the book cover is closed, the print expands to almost 20 feet.

The print had torn along one of the folds leaving the majority of the print detached.  The binding had also broken along the spine.  To enable the book to be exhibited, the back board and spine had to be reattached to the front board, and the print had to be rejoined, as well.  Our paper conservator separated the papers from the interior and exterior of the covers in order to create a new hinge along the spine with strong Japanese paper pasted to the underlying cardboard.  The print’s broken fold and other small tears were mended, also with Japanese paper.  The binding is now in one piece, and the panoramic print can now be viewed as a single image.  See the entire print, and a reinterpretation of the 1883 Cincinnati Exposition parade at the Contemporary Arts Center until January 17, 2021.

Thomson, Peter G., Roma: Panorama of the Progression of the Order of Cincinnatus at the Opening of the Eleventh Cincinnati Exposition September 1883, color lithograph panorama in hardboard cover, 1883, Gift of Clyde M. Bowden, 2013.191