Conservator brings Fresno history to light

The Fresco Bee - Wednesday September 4, 1996

By David Hale

Once, the Veteran Memorial Auditorium was Fresno's playhouse - the only place to hear performances of the world's great music, dance and drama, and witness spectacles like political conventions, ice shows and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The last visible symbols of the building's glorious past vanished 20 years ago; a city employee - under protest - repainted the stately foyer, cloaking a series of neo - classical murals with pedestrian pastel paint. The long - buried treasures are slowly returning to colorful life in the hands of mural conservator Nathan Zakheim of Maria Del Rey. The restoration is the first phase of a project sponsored by Patrons for Cultural Arts, a citizens group that seeks to begin a major rehabilitation of the auditorium, commemorating the 60 th anniversary of the place, which opened in 1936. The murals are "in basically good condition," said Zakheim, who restores and transplants historic murals. Zakheim and colleague Monica Valladares have been working, mainly at night, for two weeks. Visitors may see their progress from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. The first step was the part they describe as "conservation," in which the rolled and brushed on gallons of chemicals, gradually peeling away the "new" paint and revealing colors and images. The "restoration," still going on, entails retouching and painting, some surface repair, replacing the old painted scroll work and borders with appliquéd old leaf and silver and finishing everything with a coat of protective "Rembrandt" vanish. Midway through, the exotic figures stand out to trompe l'oeil effect in glistering, rich Naples gold paint. By the time the job is completed, Zakheim predicts the colors will be, if anything, more brilliant than the original.

In a 70-year career that lasted until his death in 1981, Heinsbergen was credited with decorating 395 theatres in California, as well countless other buildings. "He had a big company, and they went everywhere," said Zakheim, whose own artful family includes his father, who contributed to the décor of the Coit Tower and several other landmark buildings in San Francisco. "He [Heingsbergen] got big at a time when artists didn't go to art school; they took training from the guild. "I 've worked on his decoration before and seen every style imaginable from him. He took the art of decorating to a new realm - creating the offset of.....," said Zakheim, whose restoration work on he 12 Arthur Matthews murals in the rotunda of the state Capitol in Sacramento was among the simpler projects in his portfolio. "My studio is filled with chemicals, tools, equipment, photos, and processes that I developed years ago. With most of the, I thought I'd mastered the technique for conserving murals, and I've never use them again, " he said. The patrons for Cultural Arts views the reclamation of memorial Auditorium, which was named to the National Historic Register a year ago, as a key component of downtown, revitalization.