About
The Center for Painted Wall Preservation Inc. (CPWP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2015 to document and preserve painted plaster walls. CPWP provides advice on care and structural issues; connections to a trusted network of conservation, preservation, and paint analysis technicians; documentation of painted walls; attribution assistance; extrication support; presentations on painted walls; and an archive of case studies and images.
Historical societies and homeowners are constantly 'discovering' painted walls —under wall paper or covered by plywood, on plaster that is failing or in buildings with structural issues, subject to myriad circumstances, including imminent demolition. The all-volunteer experts of the CPWP step in to document and assess the walls and advise on decision-making in the interest of the artifacts.
CPWP in the News
"Rubbish-bound Murals go instead to Museum" in The Magazine Antiques
"Thanks to an astute residential contractor, the expert guidance of members of the Center for Painted Wall Preservation, the help of antiques dealer Allan Katz, and the generosity of collectors Karin and Jonathan Fielding, a group of early nineteenth-century New England murals that might have ended up on a scrap pile have instead found a new home at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens"
"Rufus Porter: inventor, muralist, and artist" segment on Bill Green's Maine
Watch CPWP Board member Ron Kley talk about Rufus Porter and painted walls with Bill Green.
"The Painted Wall: Freehand Scrollwork" by Linda Lefko in Antique Homes, The Sales Directory of Antique and Historic Properties.
Sharing the The Governor Galusha Homestead in Shaftsbury Center, VT —an amazing survival of original freehand brushwork.
"If Walls Could Talk: The Painted Walls of New England" by Barbara Miller Beem in New England Antiques Journal.
"...early nineteenth-century homeowners opened their homes to artists equipped with little more than brushes and paints made of glue and pigments – and hopefully, talent. And what resulted are beautifully painted walls, expressions of folk art that are vulnerable remnants of history..."