Objects Department: Reconstruction of wax figures

Conservation Assistant Kaylie reassembling the wax figure of Bernard Bragg by Don Baer.

California School for the Deaf in Fremont is recognized for its academic rigor and bilingual instruction in American Sign Language and English. The school contains a small art museum that has an array of collections, including a group of wax figures that honor notable Deaf Americans by Deaf sculptor Don Baer.

Don Baer (1959-2013), graduated from the California School for the Deaf, Berkeley in 1979. His professional career was focused on arts and theater that promoted Deaf culture, working in illustration and performance. After an internship at the Hollywood Wax Museum, he created a unique legacy by using his artistic talent to create life-size, three-dimensional wax figures of prominent and noteworthy individuals in Deaf history. Figures in this collection include Andrew Foster, who established the first school for the deaf in Africa, Juliette Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, and Major League Baseball player William Hoy. Baer also founded DeafWax, a nonprofit that exhibited his wax figures throughout California and Texas, and the collection was then gifted to be permanently installed at the California School of the Deaf.

In 2023, we were introduced to the project by visiting the school in Fremont to learn about the collection and tour the museum. The eleven figures created by Baer had been on traveling exhibition for several years before being installed in the museum. After assessing the collections needs and building a priority plan, the first step was for Preservation Arts technicians to deinstall the wax figures, safely packing and transporting them into our studio. The objects team then removed the textile components for preventative anoxia pest treatment, after which the costumes could be cleaned and stabilized. Each of the wax figures presented different condition issues from surfacing cleaning, stabilizing the figure, new mounts, molding and reconstruction of missing features, reattachment of new parts, consolidating and filling losses in the wax faces and hands. Each figure was individually treated with its particular composition in mind. Our team then re-dressed the figures and returned the collection to be reinstalled at the CSD museum for generations of students to enjoy.

This project was supported by the Parodi Charitable Trust, chaired by Frank Lester.