Interior Decorative Painting Restored
The interior of the Candoro Marble Building has all the charm and ornate design of its Beaux-Arts exterior. When the Aslan Foundation began the restoration of the building, one component of the interior in need of attention was the beautiful fresco work that decorated the arched plaster ceilings and walls. The initially vibrant colors had faded and, due to water damage, there were places where the plaster had cracked, and the paint was missing entirely.
The frescos, originally painted by Hugh Tyler, depict delicately-drafted flowers, urns, and geometric patterns, fitting with the building’s style. Tyler was an established artist in the region, known for impressionistic works on canvas in addition to frescos at the University Tennessee’s Hoskins Library and the Candoro Marble Building. Beyond his artistic career, he was perhaps best known as the uncle to the famous author and Knoxville-native son, James Agee.
To return the Candoro Marble Building’s frescos to their original beauty, the restoration team hired EverGreene Architectural Arts, headquartered in New York. EverGreene is the “nation’s largest specialty contractor of architectural arts” with a team that includes not only conservators and designers but also skilled artisans. EverGreene has vast experience in preservation and restoration, including projects at the Carnegie Library, Park Avenue Armory, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville, to name just a few.
The team from EverGreene started by cleaning the existing frescos and repairing the plaster where it had been damaged. The next step was to inpaint what remained of the original frescos, filling in holes where the paint had been lost over time and matching the color exactly to the existing paint. One lunette, a semicircular fresco over one of the doorways, had been lost entirely due to water damage. To recreate it, EverGreene constructed templates, which they then used to transfer the design onto the surface where the paint was lost. It has been exciting for the restoration team to watch the completed frescos be revealed. Each freshly adorning the walls in bright and ornate patterns, breathing new life back into this historic building.
