Restoration of a vintage Native American Painted Deer Hide
I was reading leather cleaning restoration forum and ran across this thread on repairing a tiger hide. It showed how badly damaged it was. I would like help in guiding me in restoring the moisture & suppleness back to my painted hide.
I have a Native American painted deer hide done by Lakota artist Sonny Tuttle. I purchased this over a year ago from the original buyer, I have left it rolled up, inside our house on a table. The original buyer just tacked it to the wall using the holes from where the hide was stretched when tanned; I just wonder if he had it hung above a fireplace that may have dried out this hide. My plan is to restore this hide as best as possible so I can hang it up on my wall.
I’ve done research on Sonny’s work and read that he used acrylic paint when painting his hides. The buyer stated Sonny made this piece between the years 1990 – 1999. I unrolled my painted hide and the part that was inside the center of the roll was very tight. I put a flat mat with weights on it to hold it down in place so it would straighten out. I left it that way for several months and it worked. On the upper part where it was very stiff, I sprayed it with a very fine mist of water avoiding the painted part, this seems to have made that area of the hide softer. I noticed the tail on the deer hide was torn halfway. I took some nylon thread to mend this back together, and then was going to use some kind of glue for a better adhesion, thinking I would use maybe some kind of taxidermy glue. I then noticed all the cracking and part of the tail came apart as I was working on it. Part of hide is very stiff and I don’t want to do any more damage to it. I decided to stop and do some research on restoring hides before going any further. That is when I ran across this article on restoring a hide.
Further notes on Sonny Tuttle’s work: In my research into Mr. Tuttle, one of the thing he states is he buys the hides already tanned, then he prepares them further. He states, “They’re oil-tanned in a way that approaches brain-tanning.” The resulting leather is soft, with a natural cream-to-white color. Hides are left with hair on for stability. “We dampen them, re-stretch them, then scrape them to bring up the nap.” Then they are painted.
Image of Tail Damage
Images where hide is torn or cracked damage
Questions:
Do you think that this hide can be soften to where the acrylic paint is not damaged?
Can the places where it has been damaged from where the leather is thin and it tore be glued or a bonding agent used after the leather is softened?
The tail part where it broke off, can that be mended?
I am worried about the acrylic paint, I don’t want it to remove any or damage any of the paint. I have attached photos. If you feel you are not able to help me, could you direct me to someone who might be able to?
