There's a small yellowish dot on one of the clear sheets.

Color?

fly droppings?

Leftovers from someone with overly wet pronunciation bent over the paper?

The only traces that Schmutzler leaves behind, wearing gloves and a mask even before the pandemic, are those works that wander from her worktable in front of the eyes of Städel visitors, such as the graphics in the Renoir exhibition or the American graphics from " Into The New".

Eva Maria Magel

Senior cultural editor of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Now there are nothing but squares on top of each other in front of her, held in place by dots of glue applied by the artist Karl-Heinz Adler (1927-2018) a good 50 years ago.

do they still hold?

Schmutzler uses a not-too-bright flashlight to take a closer look – and the yellowish dot at the same time.

Then she grabs a plastic spatula and carefully runs it over the transparent square – done.

The stain is gone.

However, she already knows that the back of the movement will cost her a few hours with warm air.

The artist attached the black colored paper on which the collage is lying to white laid paper with double-sided adhesive tape.

For Adler it was quick, for the restorer it means precision work.

But not a difficult task compared to everything that has passed over the big workbenches in almost 34 years.

The eagle is the last sheet that Schmutzler will finish, then she clears her table in the bright studio, which manages with few utensils.

No gadgets like the sculptures, no heavy smells like the paintings.

It is, in every respect, a delicate work that is going on.

And a hugely important one.

Work as a privilege

It depends on restorers like her whether a work is in a condition in which it can be shown. They estimate when, for example, a light-sensitive original that has been exhibited at 50 lux can be shown again or lent out.

Paper is not always patient.

And when a new acquisition is purchased, as is the case with Adler, she has previously drawn up a report that assesses the condition of the work.

Always in the service of the cause: "The choice of curator and the condition of the work have priority," says Schmutzler succinctly.

In addition, their work must be flanked by art-historical research.

And result in a showing.

Her work is a privilege: "We see the works very closely." The love of art, crafts, technology, chemical-physical and art-historical knowledge, all of this flows together in a profession that has great responsibility.

What belongs to the work, what is a trace of use?

Often not an easy question.

"Are you allowed to sweep out a book with grains from the Thirty Years' War in its folds?" Schmutzler, born in 1956, first dealt with what she calls "the ethical questions" of her profession when she specialized.

As a trained bookbinder and working in book restoration for a few years, she had a chance when she worked in Bremen at the State and University Library in one of the first specialized restoration workshops at the time and was able to receive targeted further training.

34 years as a paper restorer

The questions that Schmutzler asked herself as a young restorer have now resulted in a wide range of science, training and research.

"I've always found handling single sheets more exciting than making a book usable again," says Schmutzler, who often talks about "luck", "chance" and "coincidence" when she talks about her career.

Lucky to grow up in an art-loving family, the father, who works in advertising, encouraged the four children's artistic creativity and their love of print, paper and books.

The bookbinding apprenticeship after her A-levels was a stroke of luck – and she was lucky that after Bremen she decided in favor of the individual sheets and the Städel Museum.

Today, after almost 34 years as a paper restorer there, she is an internationally networked specialist,

"The Städel Museum is almost my second home," says Schmutzler.

Back then she only wanted to stay for a few years, during the boom in graphics in the museum business, represented by the almost legendary head of the Graphic Collection at the time, Margret Stuffmann, about whom Schmutzler reports vividly.

Seeing and analyzing the work together with the curators is still essential to her today.

And even if she has one or the other preference that sometimes gets neglected in everyday life, would like to continue working on the restoration of a special collection of herb book leaves from the 14th and 15th centuries: After the eagle it's over.

For now, Schmutzler wants to go to the exhibitions of the others at normal times.

And maybe finally experiment with prints again yourself.