Spoonbridge and Cherry Sculpture

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Client: Walker Art Center

Services: Coatings inspection

Year: 2009

In February 2009, a piece of a Twin Cities landmark – the 1,200-lb. cherry from Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s “Spoonbridge and Cherry” – was removed from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden to undergo paint restoration. Although the cherry had been repainted three times in its 20 years, Walker Art Center representatives expressed concern over the condition of its coatings. Our NACE Certified coating inspector, Tim Williams, performed a failure analysis, wrote the specification for the cherry’s repair, and monitored each phase of the cleaning and coating application process.

After the cherry was separated from the spoon, 11 coats of paint and a thick layer of underlying fairing compound (auto body putty) were removed from it. The auto putty had been used to create the form of the cherry, but was beginning to show signs of failure. Next, the cherry was sprayed with a yellow oxide epoxy primer and a coat of gray epoxy primer. Layers of a green immersion-grade fairing compound, typically used on ships, were spread over the surface and allowed to dry before being hand-sanded to create the spherical shape. Once the surface was pristine, another layer of gray epoxy was added before two coats of marine-grade “cherry red” polyurethane were applied. To finish it off, a clear-coat top layer was added to provide protection against UV rays.