Federal Sculpture Conservation Contracts

The GSA Indefinite Quantity Contract

Treatment of GSA National Sculpture

Assessment of GSA National Sculpture

About the GSA Art in Architecture Program

McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory, Inc. was awarded GSA Contract
GS11P97AQD0001* in April 1998

Press Release

The General Services Administration, the nation’s largest landlord and potentially its most generous art patron has a unique and enormous responsibility: caring for its sometimes massive art commissions which adorn federal buildings across the country. Sculptures which vary from early 20th century “traditional” limestone carvings to enormous welded and painted steel constructions such as the 100 foot tall Bat Column a representation of a baseball bat by Claes Oldenburg and Coosjie van Bruggen, require expert maintenance and repairs.

McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory, Inc. of Oberlin, Ohio has been awarded a nationwide contract, renewable for three years, with the General Services Administration (GSA), Washington, DC, for care of such GSA sculpture and outdoor monuments in cements, stone, mosaic, terra-cotta, plaster, wood, metals, and other materials. Projects will be drawn from GSA’s listing of over 235 monuments and sculptures needing attention coast-to-coast and in Hawaii.

Most of the art and monuments in the GSA collections were acquired through its current art program and through earlier support programs such as the WPA (Works Progress Administration and later Works Projects Administration). GSA is charged with the care and preservation of federal art property.

Although not required by law, federal construction projects have, since President Kennedy’s office, devoted one half of one percent of the construction budgets to adornment of the buildings with art. However, the short-lived program from 1963 was “suspended” for several years after August 1966 following a Boston public’s outcry against the commission of Robert Motherwell’s New England Elegy—a large painting which hangs in the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston. Boston was duped by a reporter into believing the abstract painting depicted the assassination of the beloved president.

GSA’s Art-in-Architecture Program resumed in 1972 with Flamingo by Alexander Calder in Chicago, a 53 foot tall and brilliant orange steel abstract sculpture, to extremes of outrage at wasteful federal spending on modern art and the highest praise for its tasteful commissions. Brave GSA administrators deftly steered through these storms which followed nearly every commission. President of McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory, Robert Lodge, has restored Motherwell’s New England Elegy for GSA in the past and will be working on Calder’s Flamingo under this contract.

This unique GSA contract is a cost-saving outplacement for the enormous federal agency. In place of soliciting bids, as in the past, for each sculpture or monument individually with its associated high administrative burden, GSA has awarded this contract at fixed rates for the next three years to McKay Lodge Laboratory, Inc. who will arrange and provide all such services to the government. The McKay Lodge firm will organize, administer, and, through a national network of subcontracted firms, supply GSA with the restoration and preservation services it needs on demand. To supply these extensive and numerous services, the laboratory has organized and contracted with a geographically distributed network of conservation firms specializing in sculpture to respond to GSA projects in their respective regions. McKay Lodge Conservation Inc. also functions as the major provider of services within this network.

GSA has awarded three similar contracts to other firms in three other areas of media specialization: paper conservation, paintings conservation, and architectural materials. The four contracts total over two million dollars. In addition to the sculpture contract, McKay Lodge Laboratory, Inc. is also a participant in the paintings conservation contract awarded to Page Conservation, Inc. of Washington, DC. where McKay Lodge will be responsible for paintings and murals in the GSA collections within these seventeen states: Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania (west of Harrisburg).

McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory, Inc. has enjoyed the successful completion of GSA art preservation projects in the past. For the last two years, it has provided the sculpture conservation work in the restoration of Marshall M. Frederick’s The Expanding Universe Fountain located in the State Department, Washington, DC. This project was recently recognized with a citation in the historic preservation category of GSA’s 1996 Design Awards ceremony.

*Contract GS11P97AQD0001: Indefinite Quantity Contract for Art Conservation Services for Various Works of Art in the Fine Arts Collection Located in Various Federally Owned and Leased Buildings in all Geographic Regions of the GSA

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