Inch by inch, Frank Zuccari ’72 swirled a hand-rolled cotton swab around the 13-foot-tall canvas of The Assumption of the Virgin to restore the painting’s glow. He spent 18 months using the swabs, tiny brushes, and a magnifier headband to remove varnish from the El Greco painting. He then spent another six months helping to work on the frame. It was the painting’s first restoration in more than a century at the Art Institute of Chicago. When Zuccari finished in 2018, the museum’s president called it “a revelatory treatment,” according to the Chicago Sun Times.
Born in Rome, Zuccari immigrated to the United States at age 7 with his parents. He became a third-generation art restorer through training with his uncles at the family studio, Paul Moro Inc. (named after his maternal grandfather, who was a painter).
At Colgate, Zuccari was an art and art history major. He went on to study art conservation at SUNY Buffalo. Zuccari’s career path included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum. He joined the Art Institute of Chicago in 1986, starting as a senior conservator and becoming head of the conservation department in 1993. Colleagues said Zuccari used the skills of a detective and a scientist as he approached his work, which included restoring masterpieces by Seurat and Manet. In addition, he transported art on courier trips to cities worldwide — even traveling by cargo plane occasionally to personally oversee the protection of the canvases.
Zuccari’s work was renowned by major institutions, including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the National Gallery in London.
At the Art Institute of Chicago, he oversaw the expansion of the conservation department as well as played a key role in the planning and installation of the museum’s Modern Wing. After leading the department for 25 years, he retired in 2018; the El Greco was his last major restoration.
Zuccari died at age 70 in his Chicago home, surrounded by the paintings he loved. He is survived by his longtime companion, Maureen King, and her son, whom Zuccari helped raise; two sisters; and two nieces.