AIC's 42nd Annual Meeting

Diazotype prints are known to exhibit significant color change over time, which presents concerns for prints held in museum collections that may enter the exhibition rotation. The nature of the color change is not well understood, although it is presumed that both light exposure and environmental factors play a role. Given the relative absence of technical study on this subject, research was carried out at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to better understand how these factors influence change in diazotypes. Student interns Greta Glaser and Margaret Wessling carried out separate experiments on historic and modern diazotype samples leading up to the important exhibition of Francesca Woodman’s mammoth diazotype print, Blueprint for a Temple. The experiments focused on the effects of light and humidity on color change in the diazotype samples, quantified by spectrophotometric measurements with an X-Rite 968 spectrophotometer. Microfading was performed on the historic and contemporary samples to determine whether results varied when light was isolated as the factor of change. Finally, color and environmental monitoring were performed on Blueprint for a Temple before and after exhibition, and the real-time data were compared with the experimental results.

The presentation will outline both experiments performed on the historic and contemporary diazotype samples and present the results and conclusions. The results from microfading tests will also be delivered, along with the real-time results from the exhibition of Francesca Woodman’s, Blueprint for a Temple. All of the data will be considered for the development of exhibition recommendations for diazotype prints in museum collections.