Josep Maria Sert
Las Bodas de Camacho
15 paintings in bitumen and red on gold painted canvas
Panels: Heigth: 420cm; Various widths
Painted for the Hotel Waldorf Astoria in New York
Collection Santander Central Hispano
Currently on loan to the city of Vic

Factum Arte was commissioned to make facsimiles of all fifteen of the paintings produced by Josep Maria Sert for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The paintings have been on loan to the city of Vic since the 1980´s, then they moved to Fundación Banco Santander en la Ciudad Financiera. The replicas are in Vic and the originals at the Sala de Arte de la Ciudad Grupo Santander de Boadilla del Monte.

All photographs were taken with a Phase One H25 instant capture digital back mounted onto a medium format Hasselblad camera using an 80 mm Hasselblad lens. The photographs were taken using a cherry picker and a pair of Larn cold fluorescent lights. Each image was 38 cm sq (approximately 180% their original size). An average of 81 images were taken of each painting. These were collaged together in Adobe Photoshop and the light and colour balanced.

The maximum resolution of the Phase One H25 digital back is 22 megapixel (approximately 300 dpi in print resolution).
All resolutions are ¨true¨ resolution and not optimised or digitally enhanced.

To go from the original painting to the print the data requires several stages of mediation. Every stage of the process will affect the resolution of the image.

All stages are archived:

The archive contains: - Original capture data.
- Raw developed data after processing with the Phase One software.
- Assembled data (composite).
- Colour adjusted data (adjusted for print).
- Colour adjusted data (adjusted for screen).
From this archive derivative files can be produced for high, medium, low and thumbnail format.

All of the paintings by Sert are 420 cm high but they vary in width. On average each image generates a file of 1.4gb. These files are the maximum size that can be handled in Photoshop and are 50% smaller than final print size.

Printing

The Sert paintings are painted in a black, Vandyck brown (or bitumen) and carmine over a gold painted background. The challenge was to print the high resolution photographic data onto specially prepared canvas panels coated with a gesso and rutile mix to provide the reflective character of the gold used by Sert. Due to the size of the images they have to be printed in sections and it is therefore essential that the printing is dimensionally accurate.

The prints were all made at Factum Arte with our modified flatbed printer at a resolution of 1440x720dpi.
The final stage was the stretching and retouching to remove any sign of the joins between the sections of printed canvas. This is achieved using conservation and retouching skills.