‘Tokyo’ by Anthony Micallef

This project involved a complex tear mending process because of the massive gap on two  tears that required pulling together in order to repair properly.

We used a system first developed in Germany by professor Winfried Heiber called Der Trecker (The Puller) which enables one to pull the edges of a gaping tear together in order to glue the broken threads, one by one, and re-establish the continuity within the canvas weave. The method seen here is less sophisticated than the Der Trecker but still effective. It was employed over a period of several weeks to pull the threads slowly in a controlled manner.

Following the tear repair, it was necessary to line the canvas to confer extra support to the original cotton canvas and prevent the tear from pulling out of the picture plane. Filling and inpainting of paint losses along the tear lines was carried out to blend in with the original paintwork.