Art Conservation

About this Episode

Rebecca interviews Jill Whitten and Robert Proctor of Whitten & Proctor Fine Art Conservation. They discuss the process of art conservation and restoration, as well as their paths into the field and some of their projects with museums around the world.

(From http://www.whittenandproctor.com/02Experience.htm)

JILL WHITTEN has been a painting conservator in private practice in Houston,Texas since 1999. She received a BFA in Painting from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MA and Certificate of Conservation from Buffalo State College, New York, in 1992. She spent her graduate internship and a three-year Mellon Fellowship at the Art Institute of Chicago. In the winter of 1995, she received a Kress Grant to work as a guest conservator at the J. Paul Getty Museum on the first phase of a collaborative project to produce new retouching paints for conservators. She and Robert Proctor were sabbatical replacement lecturers at the Buffalo State College Art Conservation Department in the spring of 1996. From 1996 to 98 she worked at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., testing and developing retouching materials in the Scientific Department and as a conservator of 20th Century paintings. Jill worked as a contract conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston treating the paintings of Frederic Remington in 1997 and 1998. Jill has lectured and led workshops for conservators in the U.S. and Europe on the use of new materials for varnishing and retouching since 1993.

ROBERT PROCTOR has had a private practice serving individuals, institutions, museums, libraries, and corporations since 1994. He studied Art History at Tulane University in New Orleans and graduated with a BA in 1980. He earned an MA and Certificate of Conservation at Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York in 1992. He traveled to Munich for his graduate internship at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum where he mastered the technique of reweaving tears. From 1992-93 Robert was a graduate intern and an assistant painting conservator at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. He treated a large group of paintings by Max Beckmann at the Saint Louis Art Museum in preparation for an exhibition in Stuttgart. He worked with Jill Whitten on the Frederic Remington Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1997 and 1998. Robert is a specialist in the reweaving of tears and has taught workshops on reweaving and has lectured internationally on varnishes since 1994.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Institute for Conservation-AIC
International Institute for Conservation-IIC
Texas Association of Museums-TAM
Western Area Art Conservation-WAAC