Condition of the painting: This painting of a military soldier from the Revolutionary war time period has been in the possession of my family for over 60 years. It was created by William J.Taglieri around the 1960s. The painting is oil on wood, there are a number of areas where the wood sap has bled into the painting, these areas are documented with attached images. There are also areas of white paint that have flaked off, this condition is noted below and images have been included.

Condition of the paint: Specifically the degrading of "White Paint"

Research by scientists at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute revealed a significant problem with zinc white. A twenty eight year study released in 2007, reveals significant disadvantages to zinc white paint.

In research by Charles Tumosa and Marion Mecklenburg is was discovered that zinc oxide causes oil paint to become extremely brittle in as little as 3 years after usage.

Delamination of layers of oil paint containing zinc white was also revealed to be a significant issue. In this instance layers of paint will peel away from lower layers. The result is failure of the painting surface and the destruction of the painting. Zinc oxide tends to form zinc "soaps" by reacting with other elements. The result is cracking and peeling. Also unhappy artists and collectors.

As you can imagine the traditional means of storing an oil a canvas for transport would be to roll up the canvas and place it in a tube. But with severe brittleness this process of transporting a canvas could result in a painting's destruction.

Studies also revealed that zinc reacts with fatty acids in other paint colors. This may result in issues such as effluorescence. Whitish powdery deposits would become evident on parts of paintings

About the Artist:

"His career as an artist began serendipitously when he saw a muralist painting in a Manhattan restaurant. He was hired as an assistant, quit the police force and never looked back."

William J.Taglieri

As an artist who dedicated his life to putting New Bern and our history into endless murals and paintings, it might surprise you to learn he came to New Bern relatively late in life.

While his grandfather drew political cartoons in New York, Willie himself started his career as a cop on a beat in Manhattan. In 1981 he told “Our State” writer Phil Bowie that “I was the world’s worst cop. In five years I gave out one ticket. That’s a lousy record.”

In 1958, at a restaurant, he met a famous artist, the Frenchman Bernard Lamotte who was painting a mural. He told Bowie, “I asked him if he’d teach me to do that.” His daughter Toni Taglieri Stasinopoulos (and I have to take a break every time I type that name) told the story a little differently. Lamotte, she said, already had an apprentice. “My dad said he could do better than that guy, and the artist said to come over to his studio and they would see.” The next day the ambitious and totally untrained Willie appeared and showed what he could do. “The other guy got fired,” Toni said.
As for Willie, he quit his police job to pursue the life of an artist.
“His wife was livid,” Sami said, and a divorce quickly followed.

Taglieri trained under Lamotte and assisted him in painting a 100-foot Virgin Islands scene for the White House swimming pool during John F. Kennedy’s administration. That mural still exists – not in Washington, but in the Kennedy library in Boston.

Taglieri met a Mount. Olive man, Charlie Pratt, who had come to New York to compete in “The Price is Right.” The two became friends and, as the divorce had been a trial, he decided to move to Mount Olive himself. There he met the love of his life, Dorothy, who was content to live with a man who their daughter Sami would describe as “the true definition of a starving artist.” Taglieri supplemented his meager income by becoming a dishwasher – “I’m a first-class dishwasher,” he would proudly tell “Our State.” “It’s honest work.”

Meanwhile, back in New Bern in 1969, the federal judge John D. Larkins had decided he wanted a historic mural painted over a 50-foot length of wall in the Federal Court House. He had heard of Taglieri’s work and asked him to submit a proposal.

He liked what he saw, but the money for the project didn’t appear. The Taglieris moved to Chicago, then to Arizona, but the Judge didn’t forget him. He worked over the years to raise money for the mural with grants and other sources and, according to Toni, he convinced his friend Hoyt Minges, who owned the Pepsi bottling plant, to pay for a Pepsi-themed mural by Taglieri at what is today the Chelsea Restaurant.

Taglieri was already enjoying personalizing his murals, not only for his clients but by slyly putting himself and often members of his family into his murals. Sami said the whole family is in the Pepsi one. They would also appear in the Courthouse mural when it finally came through in 1981. He is snoozing under a tree on an outdoor mural on the walls of Captain Ratty’s on South Front Street, dozing with the disciples in a Garden of Gethsemane scene at Broad Street Christian Church and waving from a rowboat in the mural I mentioned at the beginning of this story.

Taglieri arrived in New Bern and took an instant liking to the city, where he settled down to live out the rest of his life with his wife and four children. He finished the courthouse mural, painting a quarter-scale model of his mural in an “unheated, former bank building.... downtown” (the Bank of the Arts?), according to Bowie.

That mural was completed and eventually moved to its present location at the Riverfront Convention Center.

This article originally appeared on Sun Journal: Willie Taglieri was 'Mr. New Bern'
Sun Journal
Bill Hand Nov 25, 2018 
https://www.newbernsj.com/news/local/willie-taglieri-was-mr-new-bern/article_0f70a6b8-26b2-583f-ba7d-2314c277f7f8.html



Birth
    1 Oct 1923
    New York, New York County, New York, USA
Death
    2 Nov 2002 (aged 79)
    New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina, USA


After leaving the New York Police Force (refer to obituary below), he became an assistant to New York artist Bernard Lamotte. He assisted Lamotte with the White House murals commissioned by President Kennedy. Afterwards he moved to New Bern and began his local career as a plein air and mural painter.

 In New Bern, "He painted numerous downtown historic homes, and was known to knock on the door of the house he just painted and offer the work for sale to the homeowner as soon as it was completed. New Bern residents will be familiar with his local murals including inside the Chelsea, on the side of Captain Ratty’s, and in the back of Poor Charlie’s Antique Market."
https://newbernnow.com/2021/09/the-hoe-house-a-willie-taglieri-retrospective.html


Obituary:

Willie Taglieri, the well-known artist, died in his sleep Saturday at Craven Regional Medical Center, following a lengthy illness. He was 79.

After moving to New Bern with his wife and four children in 1980, Taglieri soon found himself inextricably linked with the town. "They call me a local artist because 90 percent of my pictures are of New Bern," he said in a 1999 interview.

Note cards and Christmas cards featuring his work are popular sellers year after year in local shops and festivals, and his murals can be seen on the walls of New Bern's Federal Courthouse, Craven Regional Medical Center and numerous restaurants, banks and other businesses -- even on the side of a tourist trolley. More recently, one of his paintings depicting the old John Lawson Bridge was used as the design for a lap blanket produced by Liberty Logos in New Bern.

Although Taglieri came to be known unofficially as "New Bern's artist," he was born in New York City, on a kitchen table upstairs in the public library at 103rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where his father was the custodian.

He did a six-year stint in the Navy, from 1941-47, and served in Alaska, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Okinawa, the Philippines and Japan.

After the war, he went to work as a New York City policeman.

"I was the world's worst cop for seven-and-a-half years," he said in an interview two months ago. "I only gave one ticket in seven years. The ticket was for running a red light. I hated to give it to him."

His career as an artist began serendipitously when he saw a muralist painting in a Manhattan restaurant. He was hired as an assistant, quit the police force and never looked back.

Family and friends say Taglieri was a lifelong optimist.

"He was positive to the end. He was sure he'd get better," said his daughter, Sami Marsh. "The other day, somebody brought him some scotch at the hospital and he said, 'I'm going to wait until I get home to drink this.' We asked him if he wanted to come home, but he wanted to wait until he could walk out of the hospital on his own."

Taglieri used his art to help others as well.

"He loved his art and his involvement with the fire department and the Cystic Fibrosis Telethon," said his daughter, Toni Taglieri.

Every year since 1981, Taglieri set up his easel in the television studio and painted a picture while the annual telethon was on the air. The painting was then auctioned to raise money for cystic fibrosis research.

Of all his accomplishments, though, he was most proud of his family. 

From his obituary in the Sun Journal, New Bern, NC, November 3, 2002.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31044968/william-joseph-taglieri