Services in authentication studies, conservation, scientific study of paintings since 1970. Special forensic techniques enable us to help in matters of attribution and authentication employing such approaches as fingerprint and DNA analyses.

News and Announcements

• Further confirmation of the fingerprint comparison on Horton's Pollock painting. A major Canadian crime lab's expert has examined the work done in the comparison of a fingerprint found at the Pollock Krasner House on a paint can used by Pollock. The fingerprint on the can was again confirmed to be usable for comparison. Keys to the success of the comparison were exceptional quality photography and cutting edge digital imaging. The details of the study will be presented in an academic publication soon to be announced.

• Picturehouse, a division of New Line Cinema has released an important documentary featuring the authentication studies done on Untitled 1948 (also known as Teri's Find), the much publicized Jackson Pollock painting discovered by Teri Horton. For more information please look up http://www.picturehouse.com/jacksonpollock and http://www.birofineartrestoration.com/Pollock/Pollock.htm . The DVD is available at most retailers such as Blockbuster.
  
  CBS 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper presented a segment on the Horton Pollock picture. CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 also carried the segment.
  
  Those interested, should read my report. Members of the press are invited to review this report before contacting me as many of your questions are probably already answered there. The page has been updated several times in the recent past so don't rely on cached information. You will also find a collection of links to recent articles on the subject...

Anderson Cooper interviewing Peter Paul Biro at his Montreal home for CBS 60 Minutes. (Photo: Laszlo Biro).

• Pollock Matters exhibition at the McMullen Museum, Boston College opened 1st September.

This exhibition has put on public view a previously unknown body of experimental works Jackson Pollock may have created.

Peter Paul Biro is pleased to have collaborated in this peer-reviewed academic project. He has contributed an important essay to the exhibition catalogue regarding fingerprints he collected at the Pollock studio and on one of the Matter paintings. The exhibition catalogue is available from the Boston College Bookstore. The editors, Professor Ellen G. Landau and Professor Claude Cernuschi write in the Introduction "The discovery of a fingerprint on one of the Matter paintings whose material and support fall within Pollock's life span has led to an inquiry into the usefulness of such forensic data for art historical purposes (see Peter Paul Biro, 'Fingerprinting Jackson Pollock?')".

• Multispectral Imaging Platform

Biro has designed and built an important innovation in imaging and the analysis works of art. The instrument is essentially a highly precise robotic platform capable of groundbreaking gigabit resolution across the spectrum form the ultraviolet to the mid infrared to future x-ray analyses. Non-destructive in situ materials analysis capability is now close to completion. The instrument is capable of handling a painting 9 feet by 6 feet in one pass while achieving repeatable positional accuracy to the pixel level and has full imaging capability and software implementation. The image data produced permit the examination of a work of art in its entirety or to microscopic level detail simply by zooming in on the image and at selectable wavelengths.

The imaging platform also permits the imaging of fingerprints in microscopic detail at any wavelength - far surpassing any current standard in forensic work today. The ongoing further development of the instrument's payload with a multinational team will provide an unprecedented method of data gathering from imaging to elemental analyses in one pass. What took from weeks to months to accomplish before will soon be possible in under an hour.

• Turner's Fingerprints

Over 1000 samples of Turner's fingerprints have now been collected by Biro at the Tate Britain from an examination of over 3000 works on paper in the Turner Bequest. In collaboration with several experts both in the conservation and the forensic fields a major study is in preparation for publication.

• Joining forces with the Pigmentum Project:

www.pigmentum.org has published the following statement on their web site:

"We are delighted to welcome Peter Paul Biro into our circle of collaborators. Paul, based in Montreal, Canada, is a conservator by training, but has many years experience as a microscopic analyst working on paintings. His main focus since 1984 however has been physical evidence from paintings, notably the identification and use of fingerprints and, now, recovery of DNA. These approaches provide exciting new perspectives on establishing reference points for materials studies. As well as pursuing his physical evidence studies in conjunction with Pigmentum, Paul is also now involved in the development and field-testing of the Lazurite database." 

Pigmentums's recent association with Oxford University and now with Forensic Studies in Art is expected to create an exciting and new convergence of scientific, historic and forensic methodologies in authentication through developing and unifying currently disjointed disciplines.