WASHINGTON, DC.- Eli Wilner & Company has announced new funding to support framing projects for museums and nonprofit institutions of all sizes. The funding can be used for frame restoration, historic frame replication, or mirror replication projects. Interested institutions can apply by emailing the details of their reframing or frame restoration needs to info@eliwilner.com. No project is too large.
The White House has been a beneficiary of the Eli Wilner Frame Funding Program, with 28 framing projects completed to date. These include reframing or restoring works by renowned artists such as John Singer Sargent, Frederic Church, and Norman Rockwell. These framing projects can be viewed
here.
Childe Hassams "Avenue in the Rain," framed with a replica of an original Hassam frame by Eli Wilner & Company, in the collection of The White House.
One notable project was the reframing of Childe Hassam's Avenue in the Rain (1917), which is currently hanging in the Oval Office. The painting depicts New York City's Fifth Avenue draped with US flags. Hassam completed this painting in 1917, during the period of intense patriotic feeling that gripped the country just prior to entering the First World War. The painting is a masterful example from the artist's series of flag paintings completed between 1916 and 1919. Eli Wilner replaced the painting's former inappropriate reproduction frame with a delicately carved and richly gilded replica of an original frame designed by the artist. The frame features the cassetta profile that was favored by early 20th century American artists, and bears the artist's repeating "H" monogram.
Eli Wilner & Company has completed over 15,000 framing projects for private collectors, museums, and institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and 28 projects for The White House. Wilner was honored by the Historic Charleston Foundation with the Samuel Gaillard Stoney Conservation Craftsmanship Award, for their work in historic picture frame conservation. In 2024, Eli Wilner was presented with an Iris Award for Outstanding Dealer of the Year by the Bard Graduate Center in New York City.