(Los Angeles, California) -- "We live in a world of ever-changing technology on the one hand, and eternal values on the other," says Miguel Angel Corzo, director of the Getty Conservation Institute. Archaeologists, conservators, engineers and scientists from the Institute rely on the latest technology, including analytical instruments and printers made by HP, to preserve fine art and cultural heritage sites that are hundreds, even thousands of years old.

The Conservation Institute, along with the Getty Museum and other programs of the J. Paul Getty Trust, occupies a coastal hilltop reminiscent of the Acropolis when Athens was a gleaming city on a hill. And like the Greek city state, these programs under the direction of the J. Paul Getty Trust, have become humanity's patron of the arts. The $4.5 billion trust sponsors the work of the Museum, the grant program and several institutes whose charters support education, scholarship and conservation around the world.

América Tropical, an 18 - by - 79 foot mural that graces a rooftop wall of Italian Hall, created such a stir when Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros unveiled it on October 9, 1932 that patrons white-washed the mural and did not renew his visa.

América Tropical before patrons white-washed the 18 by 79 foot mural (artist's conception).

Conservators from the Institute recognize that the Siqueiros mural, an allegorical image of an Indian crucified at the foot of a pre-Columbian temple, transcends the political climate in which it was created. They removed the white-wash from América Tropical, revealing the faded but recognizable image of an Indian, an American eagle and two mestizo riflemen for the first time in 65 years.

"The ethics of conservation require that we document art before we conserve it," says Mitchell Hearns Bishop, research associate for the Conservation Institute.

Researchers from the Institute use a large-format camera to capture one-meter sections of América Tropical. They join these panels electronically to create a complete color image of the mural.

Conservators refer to a digital or printed map, which they generate using an HP DeskJet 755 CM large-format printer, when conserving the mural.

Their plan calls for reinforcing the brick wall that supports the mural and building a shelter to protect it from the elements. They will apply a protective coating to the Siqueiros mural, but they will not restore it.