Processed to "Museum Archival Standards"

[Sal Santamaura]

Perhaps this specification

HAER

might offer some guidance.

[Brian C. Miller]

Yeah, bingo, its a properly processed fiber print. The HAER standard should have included toning, though.

[Kevin Crisp]

I first saw this phrase on the Permawash bottle. If somebody has one handy, perhaps the standard referred to is listed on the bottle.

[Brian Ellis]

The Heico Perma Wash bottle specifies longer and shorter times and says the longer times are "required to meet archival specifications." But it doesn't say what those specifications are or where they might be found. I never trusted even their longer times, washing film for two minutes or prints for ten minutes just seemed too short to me no matter what the label on the bottle says.

[paulr]

This might help put the whole question in perspective. I just stumbled onto the annual report of an actual museum (SFMOMA) and looked at last year's acquisitions. These are the media listed for the museum purchases in painting and sculpture:

1) formica on plywood and wood

2) charcoal on paper

3) plastic bottles with screw caps, galvanized and stainless steel wire, water, isopropyl alcohol, food coloring, and cotton/polyester clothesline

4) watercolor on paper

5) watercolor on paper

6) beeswax, pigment, and human hair

7) silver leaf, neolithic tools, and artificial resin on canvas

8) animal material, plaster, steel, and button-down shirts

If there is a museum standard, it's one that includes human hair, water color paints, food coloring, and ... um ... "animal material." So I would hope it could stretch to include your not-quite-perfectly toned silver prints, too.

[Paul Coppin]

When I first learned to do B&W back in the early sixties, "archival processing" was pretty as Michael Smith relates... fibre base paper (Agfa Brovira was popular), use of a stop bath, not water, hardened fixer, minimum one hour wash @68deg at a certain minimum flow rate, nitrate testing, followed by selenium toning, storage in acid free/rag only folders... etc.

[Paul Butzi]

If there is a museum standard, it's one that includes human hair, water color paints, food coloring, and ... um ... "animal material." So I would hope it could stretch to include your not-quite-perfectly toned silver prints, too.

So the SFMOMA considers all of those works 'archival'? Really? Plywood, archival?

And I thought conservators were typically frustrated by that sort of thing - oil on plywood, or oils on masonite, where the base material outgasses nasty stuff like formaldehyde for the next 100 years or so, discoloring everything it touches.

I've gotten several emails back from folks who claim their prints are processed to the 'museum archival standards'. So far, none have pointed me to the standard they use other than to specify what their processing looks like. Quite a few of them don't appear to have seen the more recent stuff from Doug Nishimura, since they're still doing brief toning in selenium for permanance, not color shift.

[tim atherton]

Paul,

I think the point was that for museum collections such as SFMOMA "archival" isn't reallyon of the criterea in deciding on what to acquire.

The conservators don't make those decisions - their job is to care for it as best as possible once the museum has it - whatever it is.

And that even a moderately well processed silver-gelatin print is "archival" compared to most of those things listed - it's all relative.

[paulr]

Exactly my interpretation.

But maybe they mean we should be printing on plywood, and toning in animal material and food coloring, while wearing button down shirts.

[Paul Butzi]

So my conclusions:

1. There's no such thing as a 'musuem archival standard'. Museums don't specify standards for creation of artwork, they acquire artwork and then the conservators are charged with 'archival' care, which means that they're expected to make sure the artwork lasts as long as possible given other constraints (such as the requirement that it be displayed).

2. Other organizations, such as the US LOC and the Canadian CCI, DO have standards for processing of B&W materials.

3. 99% of the photographers who talk about selling prints processed "to the highest archival standards", or to "Museum archival standards", are talking through their hat.