Twenty works of art, including pieces by Louis le Brocquy, Georges Braque and Dorothy Cross, were damaged because of substandard storage conditions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma), according to an internal report from the museum.
The report, written in September 2003 by then head of collections Catherine Marshall, said the direct cause was the "inappropriate environmental conditions" in the storage facilities at its Royal Hospital Kilmainham home.
A lithograph by French cubist Braque, called L'Oiseau de Feu, had been exposed to humidity and temperature fluctuations leading to severe buckling.
This caused the print surface to adhere to the glass. An oil by Northern artist Basil Blackshaw, Anna on a Sofa, was described as having its "paint surface badly cracked" due to fluctuations.
Two tapestries by le Brocquy, The Táin and Travellers, could not be properly stored because there was "no hanging system for textiles and no possibility of this in the current store".
Leather in Dorothy Cross's sculpture, Saddle, was drying too quickly, according to Ms Marshall.
"The overcrowded nature of all of our current storage facilities makes it dangerous to handle artwork other than when absolutely necessary," the report states. However, at least some of the works on the list have been recovered or restored since then, as they have been exhibited at Imma.
Documents released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act disclose the full extent of Imma's long-running problems with storing its growing permanent collection of contemporary art, which now numbers more than 1,650 pieces and is worth many millions of euro.
Records show that Imma relied for a long period on a shipping container in its car park as emergency storage for some larger works. One such work, The Cricketer, by the British sculptor Barry Flanagan, had "bloom on the metal" after being stored there.
The documents show that the museum has been calling for off-site storage space with proper environmental controls for a decade.
Currently, Imma is allotted a 950sq m space at a 1,500sq m facility in north Dublin it shares with other cultural institutions.
The OPW yesterday said it intends to allocate all of this space to Imma as a medium-term solution, for a period of up to 15 years. Imma regards the facility as "temporary" due to it not being built-for-purpose and its distance from Imma.
No space in store for art:
Weekend: page 3
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