 And today I'm presenting a study that was carried out from Chris McGlinche and Ian Daffner at MOMA. The focus of today's presentation is a silver judging print that was face laminated with a strongly tinted orange film that MOMA conservation scientist Chris McGlinche identified as cellophane during the Thomas Walter collection project in 2010. In the late 1930s, cellophane, a type of regenerated cellulose, would have the height of its popularity. And tabard motivation for using such material was a likely effort to emulate the special effects of the day related to cinema, that of hand-colored motion picture films. With further consideration of tabard's photographic experimentation and his work in graphic departments of emerging journals, we can explore the use of this early polymeric material. On July 12, 1897, in Lyon, France, Maurice Tabard was raised by his father and initially worked in the family silk business. This is worth noting because the topic of this presentation, cellophane, in fiber form was the silk substitute material developed at the same time. Called viscous ryan silk, it has the appearance and hand of natural silk and was dramatically cheaper. It was but one of many uses of regenerated cellulose. In 1914, Tabard moved with his father to New Jersey and enrolled in classes at the Institute of Photography in New York with Emile Brunel. After his father's death in 1922, he made his living with a variety of different small jobs until the background studios hired him as a photographer, essentially launching his career as photographer. Shortly after his arrival in Paris, he was swept up into the surrealist movement and the avant-garde befriended Meiré and Rene Magritte, but was also introduced to a number of important magazine editors and art directors of the time. Soon himself became director of the photography department of De Bernier and Pinot. From 1929 throughout 1930s, Tabard published in some of the most important magazines in Paris, Jardine de Maude, Marie Claire, Art and Medicine, but also in avant-garde magazines such as Jazz, Before and Vue. His friendship with Meiré broke when Tabard published detailed technical description of solarization in some of these important magazines. Although Maurice Tabard started out as conventional portrait photographer in the United States, he made his name internationally as a musician of solarization and other dark room manipulations. These 10 photographs were acquired by MoMA between 1982 and 1992. These images begin to show his interest in reflection, shadows and the filtering of light mixed with multiple exposures. The full depth of his artistic work, however, is best represented in this group, the corner store of the French surrealists in the Thomas Walder collection. All MoMA Tabard photographs are from the first 10 years, from his first time in Paris, 1928 to 1938. They are shown from left to right, top to bottom. So you have a collage first on top, solarization and preferential hand development, distortion, three multiple exposures, a self-portrait, solarization and reversal print, and the subject there of this presentation. The 1936 so-called test for the film cult voodoo is a gelatin-server print with tinted cellophane laminate and mounted on secondary support. Hands and mask faces are often subject matter in Tabard photographs. The extended fingers here are false addition, but may allude to a form of Marfan's syndrome, first diagnosed by the Parisian Anthony Bernard Jean Marfan, who received an honorary fellowship from the Royal Society of Medicine in 1934. The subject predates Tabard's travels in Africa in the 1940s, but suggests an early interest in African culture and symbolism. The Pompidou has a similar print that is more tightly framed and was not part of this study. The photograph was laminated with a sheet of tinted cellophane film, trimmed and mounted intentionally off-center, to a secondary mount with dry-mount tissue. The artist's mat is signed Tabard 36 at the lower right-hand corner. Overall the work is a very good condition and considering the current vibrancy of the cellophane colorant, we can only assume at this time that there has been little shifting or loss of the coloring of the dye in the last 80 years. The main preservation concerns of this work are preservation of the worn edges and monitoring of the work. The detail at the right shows the cut hedge. Another Tabard print of cinema film from the Thomas Walter collection also shows this predilection for off-center mounting, which was a distinctly modernist aesthetic of the time. Shown here in natural spectra and partly raking illumination, you can see the extremely glossy surface. Tabard will also use matte surface papers. There is a fair amount of retouching on top of the extremely glossy cellophane surface. Tabard often retouched both glossy and matte prints extensively, and although we cannot say for sure if this particular retouching is by Tabard or is a later restoration, it is in keeping with its artist's practice. There is no evidence of adhesive at the interface or localized clamping or handwork on the surface of the cellophane. It is likely that a commercial or small-scale industrial process was used. A dry-mount press is one of possibility. There is no visual or scientific evidence of a separate adhesive at the interface, but a thin film of cellophane is weakly attached. This suggests the type of cellophane used was bonded with a coating specifically formulated to have heat-set properties. This is not particularly surprising because during this time cellophane was used in packaging that was heat-set sealed. The weak bond might not endure so much strain, but it is useful to know that the cellular structure of the cellophane photographic paper and the mount all likely have a similar strain response to fluctuation in humidity, so the development of strain-induced stresses may be small. Nevertheless, the stratified composition is one further argument to minimize the range of climate fluctuation this print might be exposed to. Production of the film by FTIR found it most closely matched cellophane. Cellophane or regenerated cellulose having the same molecular structure of the native product has approximately the same spectrum. The main difference is in the intensity of the bands, primarily due to variation in hydrogen bonding and the degree of crystallinity. Cellophane is essentially more amorphous, which accounts for its transparency in visible light. The OH stretch at around 3400 for the cellophane reference material shows some specific modes of the OH stretch characteristic of pure cellophane. The difference between it and the Talbot sample may indicate the latter is not pure cellophane. And we already know this because the film is colorized and might contain some additional materials that are in too low concentration to detect or don't show any characteristic peaks separate from cellophane in the higher spectrum. We tried to take a sample from the trimmed edge that includes the photographic paper and the orange film, but in each instance the two materials separated and the score in our interest in limiting the climate fluctuation this print is exposed to. From this cross section image we learn a few things. The film is very thin, about 13 microns or one half of a thousand of an inch. As far as industry standards go using the terminology of the 30s, a half mil film is thin compared to other cellophane films using packaging. It is likely that this film was intended specifically to be a laminated film and be bonded to a support. It also tinted throughout the film, indicating that the material was tinted in the vat during polymer processing. It is difficult to tell if there are additional layers at the cellophane embedded media interface. If there is anything, it's very thin. Here are the stages the raw material undergoes to become cellophane. The raw fibers and semi-crystalline material is digested by sodium hydroxide solution. As the reaction proceeds there is a reduction in molecular weight related to chain season of the main chain of the polymer. The reaction can go too far because the product will be useless as solid. The xanthate soil in the lower right corner is the penultimate stage where dyes will be added to produce a tinted throughout the dye material. Losing this material through a slot dye makes a viscous gel that is stretched through an acid bath. As the xanthate is lost to acidification, the cellulose is regenerated by a lower molecular weight. This reaction doesn't show it, but it is important to know that crystalline structure is greatly reduced resulting in a transparent product. This reference, cited below, contains some useful information on the topic of cellophane. First, it mentions, as it comes off the casting machine, it has relatively little commercial value because it cannot be heat sealed and it has a very thin rate of moisture permeability. The author gives a recipe for a typical coating applied to cellophane that improves both the heat cellability as well as the moisture barrier properties. At 12 percent solids, the cast film would be linearly thin and likely even thinner depending upon manufacturing process used to apply it. Let's explore a little bit more about Tabard and what was going on around him in the 1930s. This cover of Wu magazine from March 1936 is a photograph by Tabard. Orange washes of color are sometimes used to convey an external impression, but it can also be used to illustrate fire. This is a steal from a film in mama's collection. Early cinema used color in two ways. Details could be painstakingly colorized with transparent dyes in each frame or a sequence of frames were tinted overall with a one color to set the mood. This image shows an example of colorized film, but judging the real tracks may have been initially washed with a tint. In today's terms, we would say cellophane went viral by the late 1920s. The material was first introduced in France by the cellophane company and then licensed it to Dupont in U.S. and Cale in U.K. to expand the market. It was the first material that was lightweight, transparent, flexible, and heat-syllable with good barrier properties. It's highly practical for packaging. Three important and early cellophane applications were all related to packaging, perfume, candy, and cigarettes. In fact, according to Cowley, the largest market for cellophane in the 20s was packaging for cigarettes. Judging from the folds in this package and its size, our model is likely to have just opened a pack of cigarettes and is taken in the aroma of fresh tobacco. Not how fits draws more attention to her nose than to the fact she can sit through it, a feature probably obvious to the viewer. In Judith Brown's book Glamour in Six Dimensions, the author cites a quote from Paul Franco 1930's book, Form and Reform, where base materials are transmuted into marvels of new beauty. Brown continues, given the low cost of the material, it persists to be one of the bright spots during the global depression. Tabard knew Max Ernst, and on the left you see a collage of this drawing which contains cellophane elements. On your right, Scotch tape with the cellophane carrier was included in Mama's 2004 exhibition, Humboldt Masterpiece, and as a conservator, Masterpiece is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a cellotape. In the performing arts, a cellophane played a prominent role in the premiere of the opera Fort Sains in Three Acts at the Wordsworth in February 1834. These coincides with the first retrospective of Pablo Picasso in the United States. Working on the opera while in Paris, Virgil Thompson conceived the opera, Getru Stein produced the libretto, and Florian Stettimer designed the set in costumes. Stettimer used 1500 square feet of blue transparent cellophane to filter the light and produce a blue sky that was noted by many. One critic referred to it as a pote cellophane. One last example, Picabia is another artist known to Tabard work in Paris as part of the data movement. Clearly, tinted cellophane was abundant and available in a spectrum of colors. So to summarize, it is impossible to point to a single source that gave Tabard the idea to laminate a photographic print with orange tinted cellophane. The material was so ubiquitous. It's a perfectly logical choice for someone like Tabard who was interested in experimenting and pushing the boundaries of photography. So it was an experiment probably, and we don't have any evidence of him using this method again. And to conclude, the Google and Gram Viewer is a word frequency counter for all the books that have been scanned for a given publication year. Here we show the range 1915-2008 and plot the number of times cellophane and petrochemical occur. While cellophane peaked between 1940 after Tabard used it in 1960, it is currently more prevalent in word usage than petrochemical, which had its own peak in the early 1980s. Cellophane and other modified cellulose biopolymers are a very active area of research and will remain important materials into the 21st century and beyond. In fact, the research that we carried out for the RC project that you will hear about tomorrow morning, found the same type of studies being carried out on cellophane that were being carried out on polyethylene, the petrochemical polymer used in RC papers. So it's not far fetched to predict that one day biopolymers like cellophane will be the new RC papers. Thank you.