Hello,
I am a professional artist and I used zinc white in my last paintings. It had been years I haven’t used it and I totally forgot about the zinc white problematic. They really should label tubes. It was Winton of Windsor and Newton. Feeling really scared and stupid. I used it in mixing with paint to have more transparent colors. In some parts it was more than 15%. It’s linen stretched on aluminum bars with a Liquitex translucent gesso (worst case scenario I know). The paintings are finished and going for a show soon. I’m freaking out.
As an artist, I was wondering if there is anything I can do to help prevent the zinc white parts to crack? I know it’s not good to oil out at the end, but could oiling out the precise area where zinc white was used could help in this particular case to add some flexibility? Perhaps with walnut oil so it yellows a little less? I would prefer yellowing over cracking and flaking. Or would varnishing help in any way to protect the surface from stress? Or what else should an artist do if they mistakenly used it? Thank you so much for your help!!!
*or could I bring them to a conservation expert and could they do something to prevent cracking in this case?
(I read about preventive facing of the whole paint surface with adhesives with good penetration properties like synthetic polymers, but as an artist I don’t know how to do this) Thank you again
To Moderator Answer (brian baade)
Thank you so much for your answer. It’s so appreciated. I will definitely make sure to tell the gallery to tell the collectors to keep them in a stable environment and humidity.
I will also look into backing board to the paintings. That is a great prevention idea.
I will definitely never use zinc again, it is too nerve wracking.
Again, thank you so much, it so appreciated.
Firstly I alway use backing boards of some type. So thumbs up to that.
This is just me, but I would, IF ANYTHING, just give general suggestion about oil painting care to the gallery owner. (Taking care not to be sound condescending. And let’s face it they’ve probably had to deal with more damaged paintings than you.) What is true for zinc white oil paint care is also mostly true for all oil paint. ( Just to many lesser degrees.) Sadly most oil paintings for the last century, zinc white use is the default. So what I’m cautioning about is leading the gallery owners to believe that these painting of yours are more fragile than the norm. Which they aren’t.
Fellow artist, Marc.
First, do not panic, there are probably millions of paintings out there that contain zinc white.
Do not oil out. That will provide no additional flexibility and will only cause eventual darkening and disfigurement.
The best thing that you can do is to make sure that the artwork is stored in a place with a stable environment, especially, stable humidity.
A conservator cannot make the paint less brittle nor slow down embrittlement. Facing would not do this either. They could possibly make the painting less flexible in terms of the support which would help prevent cracking. Even adding a backing board to the painting would diminish movement of the support. This is certainly something that you could do.
In the future, if you continue to use zinc white containing paints, perhaps work on rigid supports or stretch your canvas over a rigid panel. This would provide some protection.
Again, don’t freak out.
