Cremona paintings on display again at Ta' Pinu

The newly-restored collection of paintings by prominent 20th- century artist Emvin Cremona will be unveiled at the Ta' Pinu Sanctuary in Gozo today.

The event coincides with the 125th anniversary celebrations marking the day Our Lady spoke to Carmela Grima.

The project for the restoration of the 20 paintings commenced in October 2005 and was supported throughout by the Bank of Valletta, under the Heritage Pillar of its Community Programme, through a total sponsorship of €23,000 (Lm9,873.90). The collection will form part of a permanent exhibition in a hall that will be inaugurated today by BOV chairman Roderick Chalmers.

The 20 works, completed by the late Chev. Cremona between 1954 and 1962, were hung in the sanctuary until they were sent to Italy where reproductions were made in mosaics for the church. On their return, the paintings were stored in a closet in the church and eventually lay forgotten.

Some of them suffered great damage following prolonged dampness and poor storage conditions.

Gozitan restorer Godwin Cutajar was entrusted with the restoration and conservation project of all the paintings, most of which had holes, tears, cracks and superficial dirt.

The restoration process of most of the paintings included the reinforcement of tears and creases. Each painting was successively stretched and nailed onto a new wooden stretcher and, where necessary, superficial dirt and, in some cases, even straw, was removed. Where gold and silver leaf fragments disturbed the aesthetic look, these were removed although they were part of the painting's history.

The paintings also necessitated the filling up of lacunae, another important step for giving the painting a more unified look. Lacunae on the painted areas were filled with restoration paints and those that also had the preparatory layer missing were deeper and were thus filled with stucco.

An organ recital by Hugo Agius Muscat will precede the inauguration of the permanent exhibition.