Art conservator Eva Matysek
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Art conservator Eva Matysek in Poland, restoring murals
The rejuvenating touch
by Bondo Wyszpolski
In 1929, two years after he’d designed the murals for Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, John Gabriel Beckman was commissioned by William Wrigley, Jr., to create the murals for the Avalon Theatre inside the Catalina Casino. The auditorium is spacious; it was built to accommodate nearly 1,200 patrons. In 1994, as part of an extensive restoration, which included reupholstering the seats, arts conservator Eva Matysek was hired to clean and restore the murals to their original condition. It took the Walteria resident a full year to complete the project.