Franz Marc Print Fade

Franz Marc: Red Horses ... 60 years on

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Looking at a Picture…
Mother: In 1950, my father gave me five pounds to buy a picture. I bought this Franz Marc print.

Daughter: Franz Marc?

Mother: A German artist. Expressionist.

Daughter: I thought Expressionism emphasized primary colors and startling compositions. For emotion.

Mother: It's faded over the years. Pictures do. Emotions too. All this ultraviolet bouncing around inside the room. Now you mention it, I realize I hardly noticed.

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Voice-over

There was irony in the end of Franz Marc’s life. In World War I he was a painter… of camouflage. He was listed as a talented artist who should be brought back but died before the order reached him.

All pictures tell their story through form and color, but for expressionists, color was crucial. The color of an painting or a photo or a print can be leached away by light over the years without noticing. 

Many factors can result in fading, such as exposure to fluorescent lights, pollution, humidity, heat, and the paper that was chosen for the print and the mat frame.

(from Franz Marc’s Animal Pictures, 2013)

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