Stuff happens

Sunday, Oct. 22, 2006 | 8:05 a.m.

1992 - "Marriage at Cana," an Italian Renaissance painting by Veronese, was damaged when it fell during restoration at the Louvre in Paris and was torn in five places.

2001 - A janitor at London's Eyestorm Gallery throws out an installation by Damien Hirst. The empty bottles and full ashtrays were mistaken as garbage left behind from a reception.

2004 - Gustav Metzger's art piece (a bag of paper garbage), which was being displayed at Tate Britain, was thrown away by a janitor who thought it was ... a bag of garbage.

2006 - Two pieces of art on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art fell off the walls at Pompidou Center in Paris and shattered. The works were Craig Kauffman's "Untitled Wall Relief" (1967) and a Peter Alexander untitled work (1971).

So Steve Wynn accidentally put his elbow through Picasso's "Le Reve." The bottom line? Accidents happen. Even $139 million accidents.

There is an entire industry of professionals to clean up the mess.

But the fact this happened to a high-profile painting and a high-profile collector in front of members of the media during the time the painting was being sold created a quadruple whammy.

There was the initial heartache. Then came the headlines, the giggling and the blogging, including Nora Ephron's now-infamous diatribe.

Had it happened in a museum, we never would have learned about it.

Had it happened while the collector was alone, we'd probably still not know. Prospective purchaser Stephen Cohen would know, but that might be it.

This type of thing happens more often than one would imagine, professionals say. Paintings fall off walls, are splashed with drinks and some art simply gets tossed out by mistake.

"If this occurred in a museum storage room, which it certainly has, it would be kept under the tightness of confidentiality," local art collector Patrick Duffy says.

Libby Lumpkin, art historian and consulting executive director of the Las Vegas Art Museum, agrees, saying, "A tear like Wynn's, it's the sort of thing that makes you sick when you hear about it. But the greatest museums in the world have destroyed great pieces of art.

"It's an easy repair. When it is repaired, you're not going to be able to see a tear."

So where is the painting? Wynn's people aren't saying.

Michele Quinn, partner at downtown's blue-chip gallery G-C Arts and a former Christie's East executive, speculates that it will be in the hands of the "best restorer" in the world who can "handle a Picasso painting."

"Accidents happen," Quinn says. "Cleaning ladies destroy artworks more than anyone else. Collectors have valuable pieces in their home. These are objects; they're not tucked away in vaults."

Once repaired, the naked eye won't see the damage, Diana Judson, president of Global Art Transport, says. "What you have is the psychological factor of knowing it's there."

Essentially, Wynn has etched his name in the 1932 painting for hundreds of years, an accident that will someday have good company.

"When you're dealing with older paintings - something that's 200-plus years old - it's very rare to find a painting that's in absolutely perfect condition," says Frank Zuccari, executive director of conservation and painting conservator at the Art Institute of Chicago. "Paintings show their whole history of care, neglect or sometimes poor restoration."

Fortunately, most accidents can be repaired.

A repair to a torn painting generally follows a step-by-step process - flattening the tear with weights and controlled moisture, realigning the threads with small tools and bridging the tear with adhesive. Then you work on the paint and ground layers. If the paint strokes are heavy, the bulk material used to patch the paint loss is similar to a putty and the process is analogous to "what you would do when you paint your walls," Zuccari says.

After that, it's touched up with a color-matching paint of material different than the original. "If you have an oil painting, you would never use oil to match the painting because oil paint will dissolve over time," he says.

Also, the process and materials should be reversible and the in-painting (repair with new paint) should be distinguishable from the original. This respects the artist's work and allows the restoration to be removed if needed: "There may be a need to treat the painting in the future, particularly if it fails or discolors," Zuccari says. "Even if you strive to do something long-lasting, you have to accept the work will fail or the fact that someone might have a different idea of how to conserve the work."

And the loss in value? Opinions vary. Some say the painting's beauty, price and important provenance will not be affected. Others say it's a huge loss.

Miranda Carroll, spokeswoman for the J. Paul Getty Trust, says its conservators won't speculate on "Le Reve" and its reported damage.

But, she adds, "I have spoken to the conservator who says this sort of damage is not a problem and wouldn't affect the price of the painting.

"This sort of thing does happen all the time."