As Jason Andrew made his way into the belly of the United Therapeutics manufacturing facility, through multiple security checkpoints and airlocked doors, past laboratories and warehouse shelves, he had just one thing on his mind.
It was 2021, and the object that Andrew was after lay deep inside the building, wrapped in moving blankets and a makeshift wooden crate. Upon reaching it, Andrew and the colleague he came with began unwrapping the gigantic piece—an “untombing” process,” as Andrew described to the INDY.
When both men hoisted it off the ground, they finally got a look at what they’d come for: “Bob,” a painting by contemporary artist Elizabeth Murray, that had been lost to the public for more than forty years.
The work, nearly 11-by-11 feet, had been in North Carolina since 1978. Murray, who died in 2007, is known for vibrant, often sculptural paintings; “Bob” is from relatively early in her long career. After going on exhibition at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York for the first and only time, “Bob” was purchased by the Burrough Wellcome Fund and placed in the biomedical research company’s RTP headquarters—the famous Elion-Hitchings building. The walls of the brutalist structure, designed by renowned architect Paul Rudolph, would be the home of “Bob” for the next several decades.
Fast-forward to 2020: After changing hands a few times, the Elion-Hitchings building was now owned by United Therapeutics. Despite considerable pushback from preservationists, the biotechnological company announced plans to demolish the structure. Crews roamed the building, stripping metal features, fixtures, and artwork—architectural details that had made the building a defining part of the RTP campus—ahead of the demolition. This was how one crew found themselves in the auditorium, struggling to pull a gigantic painting off a wall high above the rows of seats.
What exactly occurred next is unclear, but one way or another, “Bob” came off the wall and went crashing to the ground.
In an interview with the INDY, Andrew, the former director of the Elizabeth Murray Estate, described the painting’s journey and how he had come to view it on that factory floor—as well as how it came to live at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham.
After “Bob” made its crude dismount, the piece was laid on the ground outside the building. From there, Avi Halpert, a vice president at United Therapeutics, found it and brought it to safety inside the company’s manufacturing facility. Halpert contacted Andrew after finding Murray’s signature on the painting’s stretcher, alongside the list of materials used in the work—a detail Murray is known for.
Andrew made the trip to Durham in January of 2021, where he was able to confirm the piece as Murray’s—the second largest she ever made, in fact. Though the estate knew of the painting through gallery archives, it had been so long since its sale that they were not certain where it had ended up, or if it even still existed.
As he surveyed the deep spiral cracking on the surface of “Bob,” emanating from a clear point of impact, the demolition workers’ account of the unfortunate descent was easily confirmed. Still, the amount of paint loss was minimal, and there was hope for its conservation.
“The hard part for me was leaving the painting,” Andrew said. “I wanted to be by its side. I wanted to figure out what we could do right then and there.”
As the director of Murray’s estate, Andrew is responsible for everything from building an archive of her work to advocating for its exhibition in galleries and museums. On that cold January afternoon, though, just a few months into the pandemic, Andrew did have to leave “Bob” behind: The piece was still owned by United Therapeutics, and bureaucratic negotiations over the transfer of its title ensued.
When the company decided they wanted the painting to remain in North Carolina, Andrew recalled thinking, “I have the perfect place for it.”
Alongside the dirt, grime, and cracking on the painting’s surface, its unique wooden frame needed to be completely replaced. The shape of the piece—all four sides are a different length—is the result of a mistake made by one of Murray’s studio assistants. According to Andrew, “they goofed in cutting it,” but the unusual, diamond-like shape of the frame appealed to Murray’s artistic style, which “dismantles and rebuilds the traditional rules of abstract painting.”
For taking on such a complicated conservation job, Andrew knew that he would have to find someone who would share [his] enthusiasm and have the commitment to see this thing through.” Marshall Price, who Andrew had met while working in New York in the early 2000s, was the first person to come to mind.
Price, the chief curator of modern and contemporary art at the Nasher Museum of Art, told the INDY that conversations then began around whether the Nasher could shoulder the responsibility and scope of the project.
“We felt internally that it was worth the risk of taking on the painting given how important it was, or is, in terms of the larger landscape of Murray’s career,” said Price. “I think intrinsically, as an institution, we feel an obligation to tell stories that have not been told within the history of art, and this was a great one.”
After winning a $100,000 grant through the Bank of America Art Conservation Project, the Nasher partnered with Art Conservation Solutions. In the final leg of its odyssey, “Bob” traveled back up to New York, where conservators worked on it for more than a year.
As of mid-October, “Bob” is now back in North Carolina on the walls of the Great Hall at the Nasher—the central space in the center of the museum, where guests first walk in. In its new home, the painting is free for the public to view.
Perhaps the only remaining mystery of the saga is the identity of “Bob.”
“It’s unclear who it refers to,” said Price about the title of the painting. “[Murray] ended up getting married about 5 years after she painted the work to a man named Bob, but the painting is not a reference to him because they hadn’t met yet.”
The artist had several friends named Robert at the time, and according to some, was a great fan of Bob Dylan. As Price stated, however, “this may be a mystery that will live on.”
As for Andrew, he expressed immense satisfaction that Murray’s work had finally reached its new home, saying “it’s just going to be fantastic that the Nasher is a destination for this kind of work of hers.”
“You know, in that beautiful, open atrium at the Nasher,” said Andrew, “it’s like it always belonged there.”
To comment on this story, email [email protected].
You must be logged in to post a comment.