ART RESTORATION

Teacher leads effort to repair 100-year-old painting

In a storage room in Boyertown Area High School, a painting nearly a century old and once proudly displayed rots away in the dark. But, one teacher is working to bring this painting back into the light.

Bill Cherkasky, a teacher at Boyertown Area Senior High School, wishes to restore a painting done by Victor Schearer in 1919 for its 100th birthday, as well as for the 100th anniversary of the laying of the foundation of the high school.

Cherkasky said “our goal is to rehang it before the end of 2019, which may not mean this school year, but it could be the beginning of next school year (2019 to 2020 school year).”

Cherkasky has created a GoFundMe page called “V. Schearer Painting Restoration” in order to raise the $6,000 needed to restore the painting called.

As of the end of July , Cherkasky has raised close to $800 toward his goal on GoFundMe alone since creating the page on June 11. In total, he has raised about $2,000 toward the restoration project.

Cherkasky was inspired to start this project when he learned that the 88-inch-by65-inch painting was not going to be rehung in the library after the current renovation is complete.

“I had always seen (the painting) on the wall of the li-

brary since I started teaching in the high school in 2001,” Cherkasky said. “When I saw it was removed and that it was possibly going to be discarded, at least its frame was going to be, I just didn’t want to see that happen because I knew of its history to the building.”

In September 1935, the five members of the Boyertown School District Board of Directors used their personal funds to purchase a large framed oil painting for the Boyertown High School, Cherkasy wrote on the GoFundMe page. The gift was to celebrate the recently completed $185,000 addition to the high school which more than doubled the size of the original building, he wrote.

Cherkasky started a Facebook page called “Boyertown High School History,” which has nearly 4,000 people of all ages following it. There, he has posted photos of and information about the painting, which was bought by the Boyertown School Board in 1935. He has also promoted his GoFundMe page and has listed his current sponsors for the restoration of the painting in hopes of gaining more.

The restoration process could take several months, so it is imperative that the funds are raised as soon as possible so Cherkasky can meet his goal of rehanging the painting by the end of 2019.

Cherkasky hopes to have raised the remaining $4,000 by the end of summer.

If the restoration campaign is successful, school officials have told Cherkasky the painting will be hung in the high school’s 1935 auditorium.

SUBMITTED PHOTO The painting that once hung in the Boyertown Area High School Library is of a woodland scene painted by Berks County artist Victor Schearer in 1919. It had been displayed at the school from 1935 to 2017.

SUBMITTED PHOTO A closeup look at the painting shows the cupping and cracking of the oil paint. Restoration of the 1919 painting will cost up to $6,000. A GoFundMe page has been created to raise money for the project.

SUBMITTED PHOTO Taken out of its frame and viewed from the right angle, the image of the woodland image painted by Victor Schearer nearly 100 years ago is much clearer.

SUBMITTED PHOTO The painting hung in the Boyertown High School Library from 1935 to 2017.