Objects Department: Ceramic Reassembly
Marceline, Assistant Object Conservator treating Richard Newman, Seasons Slide by Faster Now (with Tim Hudson), 2003.
From 1992 to 2014, George Krevsky directed the George Krevsky Gallery, which was located in San Francisco’s Union Square. In the early 1980s, he inaugurated annual Art of Baseball exhibitions, thematic shows that brought contemporary art to new audiences and included works such as Richard Newman’s Seasons Slide by Faster Now, a trompe l’oeil catcher’s mitt crafted in stoneware to resemble worn leather. Krevsky was first introduced to Newman’s work through the Smithsonian Institute’s exhibition Diamonds Are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball exhibition, which shaped his lifelong engagement with the visual language of the sport. As he related to us recently, “I love three things: my wife, art, and baseball.”
Artist Richard Newman, who studied fine art and continues to work in Napa Valley, is recognized for his ceramic realism—ordinary objects rendered with striking precision. “When we were both young, my baseball glove and I were practically inseparable.” He writes, “I created leather-like illusions of these American icons in clay.” The glove embodies the tactile memory of play and integrates realism, craftsmanship, and cross-disciplinary references to sport, material, body, and memory.
The sculpture arrived at Preservation Arts after suffering severe impact damage that shattered its surface into more than two dozen fragments. Objects conservators meticulously reassembled and stabilized the work, recreating missing laces and reintegrating fills to restore its seamless illusion. Returned to Krevsky’s collection, the piece once again reflects the collector and gallerist’s lifelong devotion to baseball, art, and the stories that bind them.
Before treatment.
After treatment
Detail of mitt strap, before treatment.
Back of mitt during treatment
Mitt strap, after treatment and re-attachment.
After treatment