BY DINA SANTORELLI | Special to Newsday
Most of the photographs documenting the restoration procedures in the new book “Furniture Restoration: Step-by-Step Tips and Techniques for Professional Results” (Watson-Guptill, $50) were taken by half of the husband-and-wife team – Ina Brosseau Marx, who has no professional photography background.
“She had the instincts of taking the right pictures,” says co-author Allen Marx of his wife’s handiwork. “Some of photography is intuitive.”
And, according to the Marxes, so is furniture restoration.
Although currently residents of Princeton, N.J., the Marxes lived for 31 years in Great Neck. In 1983, they co-founded the Finishing School in Great Neck, which teaches how to reproduce and restore painted finishes; the school later moved to Port Washington and then Floral Park, its current home. The school is now run by their son, Robert Marx.
During their 30-year careers, the Marxes have restored painted, gilded and Asian lacquer objects from the 17th through 20th centuries. Their restorations can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
While their new tome explains how to analyze an object for restoration, diagnose its damage properly and plot a restoration strategy to repair key elements, such as structures, surfaces and finishes, it also emphasizes that furniture restoration can be learned. Both professional craftsmen as well as beginners, with instinct and motivation, can develop a discerning eye and train themselves in its finer points and procedures.
“If we can do it, they can do it,” says Brosseau Marx, who notes that neither she nor her husband had any professional training in furniture restoration. “I took a few woodworking classes that were never appropriate because they use these tremendous table saws and jointers – stuff that you never use for restoration.”
With page after page of instructions, checklists and other tricks of the trade, “Furniture Restoration” covers subjects such as graining, restoring color and making molds and casts, as well as what sets restoration apart from woodworking. “You use small tools for restoration; cabinet-making is so different,” notes Brosseau Marx. “In cabinet-making, everybody admires, whereas, with restoration, you have to do it so well that nobody knows it’s there. So it’s an entirely different mindset.”
In 1991, they published their first book, “Professional Painted Finishes,” which they coauthored with their son Robert.
“We have great confidence that people can do much more than they think they can,” says Allen Marx, who celebrates his 85th birthday next month.
“As we say in the book,” adds Brosseau Marx, 78, “if two hands have put it together, your two hands can try to fix it.”
Meet the authors on LI
The Marxes, who are working on a third book, a Gilding Arts dictionary, will be signing their new book at The Finishing School in Floral Park from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and will conduct a lecture and PowerPoint presentation from 2 to 3 p.m. on tips and techniques for professional results. For more information, call 516-327-4850 or e-mail finschool@aol.com. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Reservations are suggested.
