This is an item that fans of vintage Star Wars Kenner action figures will immediately recognize: it’s the original art for the Star Wars Collector’s Action Stand (or Action Collector’s Stand, or Action Display Stand, depending on where you saw it). It was painted by an unknown artist, probably in the last quarter of 1977 or the early weeks of 1978.
When we acquired the painting in 2001, it had been stored away in darkness for a few decades, so the colors remained vivid, and the board that it’s painted on remained dry and flat. Unfortunately, when it was created, it was almost certainly thought of as an ephemeral object, intended to be photographed and then likely forgotten, so the materials and techniques that were used to craft it would have been selected for efficiency rather than longevity. As a result, some of the paint in one area—the Death Star—was literally falling off in flakes. We needed to act quickly to stabilize it. We called the Seattle Art Museum for advice, and they connected us with a professional art conservation expert who we then contracted to restore the painting and help us preserve it for the future.
This is a page from the conservator’s report showing the state of the painting shortly after we acquired it.
The art conservator determined that the paint that was flaking was most likely formulated for painting plastic models rather than art board, and the board hadn’t been primed to accept that type of paint. Over the course of several weeks, he spent many hours painstakingly gluing down each and every flake of paint that was lifting, as well as replacing a bag full of tiny flakes that had already fallen away, using a needle to apply a tiny droplet of archival adhesive under each one. Next, he carefully filled in the missing areas and blended away the cracks, and finally he applied a coating intended to prevent further paint shedding.
This is a closeup of the restored painting. (The image is presented upside-down to match the image in the conservator’s report above.)
It’s easy to think of a collection as a window into the past, but collectors also think a lot about the future, spending time, money, and effort to ensure that the items in our collections will be around well after we ourselves have passed. We ended up spending as much on the restoration work as we did on the painting itself, but we’re glad that we did. We hope that one day you can enjoy it in person in The Saga Museum of Star Wars Memorabilia.