In a terrific and wildly underattended symposium on conservation held at Cornish earlier this spring and organized by art historian Elizabeth Darrow, three eloquent conservators spoke about what they do—whether they play period music while restoring a painting, for instance (Nicholas Dorman of SAM says yes, he sometimes does); whether they think about "channeling," so to speak, the dead artist whose work they're trying to be as true to as possible (sometimes, sort of, they all admitted meekly); and what they think are some of the most important ethics issues in their field today.

Mitchell Hearns Bishop from the Getty Conservation Institute, who has the new and fascinating title of curator of historic collections at the Los Angeles County Arboretum (those collections include things like these), gave a list of some of the basic rules of the field, and one of them was: Be transparent. Keep the people informed.

That's something Seattle Art Museum needs to do with its Double Elvis, which a year ago was transformed by a small catastrophe into a single Elvis when a girl knocked into it.

The silvery 1963 Warhol silkscreen of one-and-a-half Elvises does not have to be shown with the blank panel that Warhol had local framer John Denman spray with silver metallic radiator paint in 1976. The pieces are considered part of a whole when they are shown together, but they have separate dates (listed as 1963/76 when the entire thing is displayed) and the silver panel is specifically not to be shown without the Elvises panel.

But that's not the point. The point is that SAM has displayed Double Elvis doubly for more than three decades, and what's up currently—just the single panel with a plain title card—leaves out the larger story of the work, especially in the context of SAM. The piece's purchase by SAM in 1976, after all, was the occasion of the creation of the second panel.

SAM is missing out on an opportunity to tell a good story, and it's also leaving longtime museumgoers hanging. They're probably wondering whether they were seeing things before: Was that silver panel a dream?

SAM, put up an explanation. It's a good story, it's good local history, it's juicy art stuff (is that panel art if it can't be shown alone?), and it's good conservation practice. Loosen up and tell people what's going on, even if you haven't fixed the piece yet and don't know when you'll be able to get to it. You're keeping a good secret needlessly.