Please cite this article in press as: F. Pozzi, et al., How do you say “Bocour” in French? The work of Carmen Herrera and acrylic paints in post-war Europe, Journal of Cultural Heritage (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2018.09.003 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model CULHER-3471; No. of Pages 9 Journal of Cultural Heritage xxx (2018) xxx–xxx Available online at ScienceDirect www.sciencedirect.com Original article How do you say “Bocour” in French? The work of Carmen Herrera and acrylic paints in post-war Europe Federica Pozzi a,∗ , Julie Arslanoglu a , Anna Cesaratto a , Matthew Skopek b a Department of Scientific Research, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000, Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028, USA b Department of Conservation, Whitney Museum of American Art, 99, Gansevoort Street, New York, NY 10014, USA a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 5 February 2018 Received in revised form 18 July 2018 Accepted 3 September 2018 Available online xxx Keywords: Carmen Herrera Modern art Painting Binding media Acrylics Pyrolysis-GC/MS a b s t r a c t The Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera (born 1915) was the subject of a partial retrospective, titled Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight, held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in the fall of 2016. On this occasion, it was noted that the artist had listed the binding media for all the paintings in the exhibit as acrylic even though the earliest works date from the late 1940s to early 1950s, when Herrera was in Paris and acrylics were not yet known to be commercially available in Europe. Ques- tioned about the unexpected media assignments, Herrera recalled buying early acrylic paints in an art supply store near her studio in the French capital. Thus, for this study, a selection of five paintings by Carmen Herrera dated from 1948 to 1952, for which there was no sign or record of previous conservation treatments, were analyzed with a variety of non-invasive and micro-invasive instrumental techniques to characterize the painting materials in order to ascertain whether early experimental acrylic formulations might have been used. A preliminary investigation of the elemental composition of the paints entailed non-invasive analysis of the artworks with X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. Twenty-one paint sam- ples were then removed from selected areas for micro-invasive examination. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and pyrolysis–gas chromatography/mass spectrometry with and without sample deriva- tization with tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide were employed to gather detailed information on the chemical composition of the binding media. In addition, complementary analyses by Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were conducted to shed light on the pigments, colorants, and extenders present. Results revealed that the paints are composed of a range of both traditional and modern materials, including: calcite, gypsum, barite, and titanium white (in the form of rutile and anatase); cadmium yellows, oranges, and reds; Pigment Red 83 – the synthetic counterpart of natural dye alizarin (1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone) – precipitated onto an aluminum-rich substrate; viridian and emerald green; cerulean blue, cobalt blue, as well as Prussian blue; iron-containing earths and umber-based pigments; as well as bone and/or ivory black. More remarkably, a complex progression of organic binders was uncovered: mixtures of modified oils, detected in paintings dated to 1948 and 1949, were gradually replaced or combined with other binding media, such as acrylics (mostly n-butyl methacrylate), polyvinyl acetate, and oil-based alkyds based on ortho-phthalic acid, in works painted during the following three years. Remarkably, the first occurrence of acrylic binders was observed in a painting dated to 1949, well before the date of introduction to the European market of the first acrylic-based paints by George Rowney & Sons in 1963. In addition to offering insight into Her- rera’s materials and techniques, this study represents a major advancement in the current scholarship regarding the availability and use of acrylic-based artists’ paints in Europe. © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the fall of 2016, the Whitney Museum of American Art organized Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight, a partial retrospective ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: federica.pozzi@metmuseum.org (F. Pozzi). of the pioneering 103-year-old Cuban-American artist (Fig. 1) that featured more than fifty works, including paintings, three- dimensional objects, and works on paper [1]. The exhibition focused on a thirty-year period that started with the artist’s arrival in Paris in 1948, where she worked for six years before returning to New York City. Interestingly, Herrera listed the medium of all the paintings in the show, including the early works from Paris, as acrylic. However, the availability of acrylic-based artists’ paints https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2018.09.003 1296-2074/© 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.