NEW YORK, NY.- Following a tremendous response from museums in January,
Eli Wilner & Company's funding partners have committed another $225,000 that will be available toward reframing and frame restoration projects for museums and nonprofit institutions of all sizes. The funds are to be committed to new projects by March 15, 2025, and can be used for frame restoration, historic frame replication, or mirror replication. 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, Childe Hassam and Norman Rockwell.
One notable project was the reframing of an 1848 painting entitled Rutland Falls, Vermont, by Frederic Edwin Church, for which Wilner provided an American frame in a style dating to the 1850s. Painted shortly after his mentor Thomas Cole's death, it may allude to this loss, echoing his memorial piece To the Memory of Cole. The scene features a waterfall beside an idle sawmill, bathed in the setting sun's glow. The rising moon peeks above vibrant clouds. A lone fisherman stands on the riverbank. Art historian William Kloss has suggested that the painting explores transience and duration, as symbolic representations of nature were common in nineteenth-century landscapes.
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.
