CINCINNATI, OH.- A highlight of the Cincinnati Art Museum's Alice Bimel Courtyard, The Vine, by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, will soon be re-installed and restored to its original glory. The sculpture has been in storage for the last several years. Assistant Objects Conservator Kelly Schulze will be working in public in the courtyard Tuesday – Thursday, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. and 2 – 4 p.m., starting July 7, weather permitting.

Schulze has been working in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s conservation department since 2014. She received a master’s degree in objects conservation from University College London in 2013. She holds undergraduate degrees in chemistry and anthropology, and worked as a conservation intern at Historic Royal Palaces and Plowden & Smith Conservation, London, before joining the Art Museum.

Since the sculpture has been kept outdoors for decades, the elements have taken a toll on the work, despite preventative care. Schulze will use a multi-step process that includes cleaning and removing the materials applied during previous treatments, removing the corrosion products, and applying new protective patination. Using a sequence of chemicals, she will use the most up-to-date techniques to produce a protective patination layer on the bronze sculpture. The exact duration of the restoration is to be determined, but Schulze should be working through most of July.

Frishmuth, the award-winning sculptor of The Vine, was born in Philadelphia in 1880 and grew up in Paris, Dresden and Pennsylvania. She is famous for her bronze works which often were the result of collaboration between the sculptor and the dancers who posed for them.

The Cincinnati Art Museum has an important collection of her work, with one statuette and four large-scale bronzes , including The Star, which is currently on display in the courtyard by the patio. The Vine is one of only six located castings at the dramatic 86-inch scale. Another casting of The Vine is prominently displayed in the Sculpture Court of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 1920s,three of the large bronzes were placed in the gardens at Laurel Court, the grand Peter G. Thomson House in College Hill, Cincinnati. Dwight J. Thomson donated them to the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1980.