6. Saving the frames: restorer's fight with time | Interview with Rollo Whately. Part 1

Our today's guest Rollo is a restorer, frames collector and dealer. While everyone looks at the canvas, he knows the frame tells its own story and holds its own value.

In this conversation, you’ll discover:
- how frame design has moved from pure function to a celebrated art form across centuries, and what that means for your collection;  
- what stands behind the meticulous process of conserving and restoring antique frames; 
- is frame restoration a viable career or business? 

Part 2 is coming soon! Please, leave a comment and rate my podcast if you enjoyed this episode. Your support means the world to me! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Phantom of the Rubens, and today I am in the workshop of Rollo Waitley, who is a distinguished frame restorer, whose work lies in an intersection of material and historical aesthetics. Trained in a meticulous tradition of craftsmanship, he approaches frames uh not merely as a decorative but also as an extension of artworks and historical identity. Good afternoon, Rollo.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hello, Darry. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

I wanted to ask you a bit more about your practice.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Well, you made it sound very grand in that introduction. Um I started off by disliking frames. Not frames particularly with pictures, but I the first time I first things I bought were frames. Um when I was working for probably Wiggins a long time ago. I bought a couple of frames and I just loved them. I used to have them on the walls of my flat then. And the great thing about frames um is that you can hang on the side of each other. So you can hang three in a space that only one picture takes. So um I started collecting frames and gathering them together. And I I do have a thing for frames. Um I just like them.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

And do you have any philosophy uh towards restoration and consideration that restoration and consideration are different things.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Um we'll come on to restoration in a minute, perhaps. But consideration of frames, yes, there is a philosophy, I think. I like things that are authentic frames. So I'm not that keen on, let's say, a 19th-century copy of an 18th-century style and a frame. Those could be really ugly, the kinds of frames you see in shoe shops around shoes, and they're made of plaster or plastic or something. I don't like that kind of frame. I like frames that have um an intrinsic quality and probably or possibly an original surface. And I've got a thing about balance. And sometimes a frame has a sort of intrinsic balance to it. For that I'll give you a bit of background. Frames are made by anonymous people. We know all about pictures and who they're buying. In fact, it was really important who they're buying because it determines the value of the picture. But frames are made by anonymous people in anonymous workshops, which come and go. And so there is a chap, perhaps his name was George, or perhaps her name was Daria. And two hundred years ago she was making something but to the best of her ability, or his ability probably, um, because workshops were full of men, and they took pride in it, but we don't know who they are. But still, if you look at a Spanish 18th century frame, it can be absolutely beautiful, without anything in it. So long before you get to f framing a picture or restoring it or anything, it could be um beautiful in its own right. And that's that that's one of the first frames I bought was a 17th century English lily panel silvered frame, and it was just a lovely surface, you know, 250 years old, never been touched. And um I just like having old things and things, as I say, that haven't been mugged around with. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Yes, yes, yes. It does. And um uh frames are often seen mistakenly, secondary to the pictures by uh some people. Uh how do you perceive the dialogue between the painting and the frame?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Okay, well that brings us on to framing pictures, which is a a another thing. Um sometimes the dialogue is a historical one. So, as we were talking about earlier, you might put a Dutch frame on um so a black ebony frame on a Dutch picture. So the dialogue there is a historical one. It's about this is a Dutch picture, so we're gonna put a black frame on it. But the dialogue can also be an aesthetic one. So you might put a French 17th century frame, as I have done, on a Picasso drawing. Because although they don't have that historical congruity, they still um work really well together. Um and Picasso, in fact, while we're on here, me there were pictures of him holding Italian 16th century frames, because he s apparently quite liked them, and he could buy them cheaply probably. Um so that would be another kind of dialogue, is that it just works well together. And often that's the most exciting part of the job. And often, to be honest, with contemporary and modern or modern pictures, so late 19th century, early 20th century, you can have real fun framing and find something that isn't historically the right date, but just looks amazing. And makes the picture sing.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

And you you've mentioned you first started uh collecting frames, but uh was it something that made you uh come to working with frames, restoring and conserving frames, or was it something else that actually No, I just I started at Wiggins when I needed a job um soon after my mother had died, so it was a difficult time, and then then I worked for Bonham's and did auctions of loads and loads and loads of frames.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

We had like 15 frame sales a year, um, thousands of frames went through my hands. So then I got to learn a lot, and then I worked for John Davis, who makes black frames, sort of trade frames, and and then one day I bought a frame on a Saturday from a nice chap in South London, um, who had a warehouse full of old frames and was a framer, and I bought it for £400 on the Saturday, and I sold it for £1,400 on the Tuesday Um to one of my now colleagues, and um I thought I'd don't have to I only have to do that a few times a month and I made a living. So that's when I started buying and selling frames. And then I we were in a tiny attic to begin with, and then in Bond Street, and then we'd been here for about twenty-two years. So it wasn't a decision. None of these things I think are decisions. Um It was just a a meander through or finding my way through to what I was good at, which is probably m you know making a bit of money, enough to live on, and I'm quite good with my hands, so I know what to do to things.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

And what came uh first? Um restoring and conserving the frames or buying and uh buying and selling came first.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

When I was in previous shows, I did a little bit of finishing. So sometimes the frame would come down from a workshop and need to be delivered to a client, but it wasn't quite the right client colour for the client. And that's when I realised that you just need a paintbrush and some common sense and you can change the way it looks. And that's my strong point now in the workshop downstairs, which we might see in a minute, is to be able to make things look exactly as they should look, looking their best using techniques like rubbing it, or knocking it, or distressing it, or colouring it, or whatever it is, because gold is gold colour, it's quite bright, so it always needs taking down. So, but it was first it was the antiques because I'd that was my experience, and then finishing. And I'd seen frame workshops, so I knew roughly how they worked.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

And can you tell us a bit more about your amazing workshop? You're in uh St. James Street, Central, but it's a quite uh like you need to know that you're located here uh in order to find you, and it's so beautiful inside here, so many frames.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yes. Well I'm I'm I like to think of myself as a not a well-kept secret, but I mean I don't um appetise myself much. I've um I started, Daria, mostly working with the trade. For art dealers. Mainly. Mainly, almost 100% art dealers. Now it's completely different. Now there's many more private clients. Um there are museums along the way, but I've never really gone to the museum work. Um some of my competitors have, but I haven't gone for the museum work. Um so um with mostly trade, so I didn't need to be public. And the trade knew me, and I knew the trade because I'd been working in the art trade already for ten years by then, and I knew they knew the people, and I could talk their language, and I could give them what they needed, which is often things in a hurry, or they need your repairs, or they need, you know, a quick frame, or to borrow frame to show a clans, or whatever it is. So I was and I'm on friendly terms and many people in the trade. So that was how I started, and um, and it's evolved into this workshop, which is um, yes, it looks like we've been here for 150 years, but we haven't. We've only been here for 20 years. But when we moved here, we had to take all the carpet up. Uh I don't know if you can see this, but and and and and some of these floorboards are new and some are old. We've made the up the new ones look like old floorboards because we wanted to look as if we've always been here.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

No, of course, of course. That's I guess the feeling you you get for from from being in the workshop. And how many frames pass by your hands on the We're on stock numbers?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

About eight or nine thousand. So I mean some of the stock numbers will have and we've done about ten or fifteen thousand jobs, I think, over the years. And there are about a thousand frames here at any one time. It's harder now to buy frames. Um I used to buy a lot more. But um it's harder to buy frames now because Brexit. I bought some frames last earlier this week in Paris, the first time since Brexit. I bought frames, they were just in an online sale, they weren't expensive. Above 1,200 pounds of frames. The first quote I got for shipping was 1,100 pounds. It's crazy because of the import duty and the customs and the all the paperwork, and it's a nightmare. So that has had a big impact, as you know, on the London art business. Um, it really has had done awful damage. So I'm very cross about Brexit. But we're gonna keep going. Um so I'm not buying as much as I did. But I'm also not as young as I was. And um And there were far more dealers in the past, for instance. Sometimes a dealer would ring you up and say, 'I've got a garage full of frames, or we've got a basement full of frames we don't want.' Can you come and help us get rid of them? And that would be great, because there'd be a few good ones and a few bad ones. I remember once um in an attic in Amsterdam, you know, very, very dusty. They literally literally thick with dust, these things. I think it was the sort of second generation art dealer in Amsterdam. And that was, you know, dirty work. But um that happens much less frequently now because so many dealers have as as the market's contracted, there are so f fewer dealers around with you know basements full of frames.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

And mention uh the basements are full of frames, what was your favorite project that you worked in?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Ever. Oh, it's very hard to say. I I sometimes things are just very exciting because they come together. And it doesn't have to be an expensive picture. Um Selling things to museums, we've sold a number of frames to the National Gallery in London. It's nothing to do with me. I just I just buy these things and then they might come and see that and say, Oh, we've got a picture for that. And that happened early on in my career when somebody at the National Gallery, who as long ago retired, uh found a frame for the sunflowers, the Van Gogh sunflowers. The one that the Paul Girls who went to prison got um through the Soup app. And um I sold that frame to the the Van Gogh to the National Gallery. And that was exciting because you know everyone thinks of you know uh everyone knows that painting is. Um I'll tell you another story. There's also on our website about a chap came to me with an Isabe in 19th century French painting, and he wanted a frame in a hurry. And we used to have a store up in King's Cross in one of the railway arches, and um he insisted he was in a real hurry for a frame, and he insisted we went to the store. We went out to the store and we found a frame which was I bought in Paris a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months before, and it was covered in bronze painting. It was a fing a French fluted hollow. Funnily enough, he bought the painting in Paris about three or four months ago. And this was the frame for the painting, and the frame had Isabe written on the back and the nail holes were in exactly the same place. So they were reunited in King's Cross and ended up in an American museum, so um That's that's great fun.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

It was meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yes, it was meant to be, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

And uh do they have any sort of dream project or dream that you would love to work on one day?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Going back to what I said at the beginning, I would love that to be um a a gallery or room in the VA or something devoted to frames. I think they are really beautiful things in their own right. It's very hard to uh get anyone to understand that. And now all the framers who are now sadly deceased have all said I do all I really want to do is get people to buy frames from their own self so that they will look at the walls in here with lots of holes and um and such craftsmanship, but I don't think that'll ever happen. But I'd love to see some of my frames uh end up in a museum, just as frames. Um but um there have been exhibitions of frames. There was an exhibition of San Savino frames. I don't know if you can see the one behind me, that's called the San Savino frame. And with an exhibition of frames at the National Gallery, um, which is run now by someone called Peter Schader, who's very good. And um he loves San Savino frames, he's a carver, so he likes them because they're carved, I think. And they're old. They're Venetian, 16th century. Um It'd be nice to have an exhibition of frames somewhere. Um I've just But they're very hard to look at. The best way to look at a frame is to p is to feel it. Or to see it on a picture. So um No I don't think there's a project I've got. A dream project. Pusa. I've only ever framed a g not very good poussant. I'd like to frame a really good Pussin, but the ones in Dulitch are badly framed and they are beautiful paintings.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Great, great, great project for for the future.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yes, yeah, but they've got no money. The problem is, you know, these museums have very little money. American museums have more money, but um I I I don't have much access to American museums.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, American museums I've I've I f think always re-restoring something, reframing, re-hanging, and it's always something happening. And do you have any um mentioning reframing Business, do you have any favorite period, country of the frames that uh in the 18th century in France uh frame makers were actually um controlled by guild.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Um and often had to put stamps on the back for tax reason. But the the 18th century in France the craftsmanship was of exceptional quality if you think of boule furniture or French armchairs or and even frames were made exquisitely. I don't think anyone will ever make furniture or frames as well as the French did in the 18th century, um, ever again, probably. Um Having said that, there are Italian frames um which are full of joy and excitement. The French are very controlled and beautifully made. Our Italian frames can be full of joy and excitement, sometimes not very well made, sometimes not even that square, but they're lovely. Um English frames. Um very overlooked. I bought the as I said, I bought some frames in Paris earlier this week. One of them was a lovely English Chipendale frame, but the French will not use the word en la terre. Uh they called it a French Steel Louis 15. So the great place to buy English frames is Paris, because they just hate it so much. And um English frames can be absolutely extraordinary because they're very economical. The French no economy at all, and they do things incredibly carefully and with various different layers, and everyone would be allowed to do one part of the process and only English were like English are um very um not slapdash, but just economical. So English sweat frames from the 18th century can be just gobsmackingly beautiful. They can do really extraordinary works of craftsmanship. So no, no, nothing in particular. Dutch frames can be beautiful, ebony from the East Indies, marvellous wood, they fantastic craftsman. So I think it must have been individuals.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Isn't there any country period of the film which is more difficult to restore than the other?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Um not really. Uh for restoration it's always the same process. Essentially you fill and you match the surface. Or you do some cabinet work, which is not what I do at all, um, and you match the surface. Or if you're adjusting the size of a frame, which we can also do, you make the reductions and adjust the surface to match. It's not No, that's I don't think it's not like Italian pictures would go to an Italian paintings conservator, you know, who specializes in Italian paintings and and Dutch would go to somebody who's good at Dutch panels. No, it's not quite like that. I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Understood. And how does we touched a bit on the process of restoration? How can you talk us a bit more through through the process? How does it really work? For example, how how does adjusting the frame would work or gilding the frame would work?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Well, let's say you had a French painting and I in a French frame didn't quite fit for one reason or another. We could it would go off to a cabinet maker and be adjusted. Um they would do complicated things. Often a frame might be taken into not just four parts for each side, but eight or even sixteen parts to take the corners and the centres off because often frames are centred. So they go out from the centre to the corners and down to the centers again. So you'd go to a cabinet maker first, and then you would do some gesso work or putty work to fill the cracks to make it good. And then you'd prepare it and gild it, and then you'd finish the toning of the gold to match the original. Um gold's quite forgiving. Gold leaf is quite forgiving. Um and um but it can be can take a long time, it can be very time-consuming work. Sometimes frames which are well frames are carved wood mainly, with gesso on top, and then clay, which is that red colour normally we sort of normally see, and then gold, and then a pattern. Um sometimes the gesso can get damaged by damp. Damp is the big enemy of fragments. Um they can withstand sunlight in a way that pictures can't, but they can't withstand damp, because the damp gets into the gesso, and in English we call it it's shot. It's gone, the glue's gone out of it, and it's just a crumbler. If you've got a crumbler on your hand, or a fragment that's very woodwormy, then you um have to do some considerable work to consolidate the gesso or the wood if it's woodworm and make it stable enough to go on in. Its life um as a frame.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

And this process would take how long?

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Uh normal restoration, three or four weeks depends how big it is and what damage is. Um small repairs can be done very easily, and if someone's watching this and they've got a few chips in their frame, just don't put gold paint on it, put a little bit of watercolor on it, and as soon as you don't see the chip, um as soon as it's not obvious and white, then you won't see it and do your eyes will move on to something else and it'll be gone. So it's a lot of magic, and sometimes you've got an old frame which is all dusty. If you just turn it the other way up, the dust is in shadow then and you don't see it, and it all looks new again. Um we do that often. And the client says, How'd you do that? And we say we just turned it upside down, we send them a bill for 200 pounds and it you know, it'd be it works fine.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

And so I guess it's case by case. There is no like one thing how you would uh no rule how there's no rule.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

There's no rule how to do things. If I can't do something, then I know lots of people who can. And in London we're lucky to have lots of men and women who are often very small workshops on often on their own who can do amazing things. There's some amazing craftsmen in London.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Thank you everyone for listening. And soon we'll be releasing the part two of our interview with Robert.