Framing an Oil Painting

[Charles Meyer]

Hello all,

Last year I taught at an ESL school in Prague, Czech Republic. At
the end of the year one of my students gave me a painting. She was
studying art at a school near Prague and the painting is quite good,
imo, and I'd like to frame it. The problem is that in order to
transport it back to the States I had to take the painting off of its
original stretcher bars. She stretched the canves before painting, but
I had to remove it from the stretchers in order to roll it in a tube
and put it in my luggage. Now I am at home with the rolled-up picture,
but no one around here will frame it because it is a metric size and
there is not a lot of excess fabric to be stretched. I live in
Chattanooga, TN, and I guess there isn't a big market for framers...

How would you recommend framing the picture? Do I need to have it
restretched, then framed? I know basically nothing about taking care of
oil paintings so I need advice on how to best preserve it...

Thanks

[Erik A. Mattila]

Charles, I think you are running-up against the fact that most frame
shops are more or less franchises connected with large moulding
companies - you know, a person puts up the bucks for the store, and then
goes through a training session which teaches him/her how to use the
equipment and supplies that are provided. They don't really know how to
do anything outside the capabilities of the supplier. But stretching
and framing a painting is not rocket science. I would recommend you
taking it a local cabinet shop for the stretcher bars. It doesn't have
to be restretched very tight, since it is alread painted. Then you can
use your computer (Google) to find some frame moulding to your taste,
and have it cut to the size you need. Take that to a frame shop (or
cabinet shop, for that matter) and have it put together. Viola! You'll
have a framed memoir of your adventures in Prague.