Kumu conservator: Soviet-era painters worked with whatever materials they could find

Polina Richter, a painting conservator at Estonia's Kumu art museum, is examining Soviet-era oil-painting materials for her master's thesis at the Estonian Academy of Arts' heritage protection and conservation program, focusing on how artists of that period obtained and used their supplies.

According to Richter, artists during the Soviet era mainly bought materials from the Artists' Union shop, but quantities were limited and each painter received a fixed allocation of specific paints. This scarcity pushed many artists toward inventive workarounds. She has not come across evidence of artists making their own pigments when supplies ran out, though she does not rule out that someone may have done so.

Daily work at Kumu

Richter's regular work at Kumu involves preparing paintings for exhibitions. Many pieces have already undergone conservation, but older restorations sometimes need reassessment and touch-ups before being displayed again. She likens the conservation process to treating a patient: first determining the artwork's history and problems, then choosing the right approach.

Kumu's painting department has four staff members, alongside separate departments for paper, sculpture and frames. Autumn and spring tend to be the busiest seasons, as more exhibitions are prepared then. Ahead of each exhibition, conservators work with curators and other staff to decide which works need preparation and whether there is enough time to complete the work.

A conservator's toolkit includes chemicals, primers and paints, but Richter noted that dentist tools are among the more unexpected items used, proving useful for fine detail work. Every intervention, such as removing old varnish, is carefully weighed, since varnish yellows over time yet is often considered part of the painting itself. When a work's materials are not well documented, samples are tested beforehand, sometimes under a microscope or in a lab. Unexpected problems during conservation are rare, and the team resolves them on its own.