The Studio

Jill Whitten has been a paintings 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 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. From 1996 to 1998 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 twentieth-century paintings. She treated the paintings of Frederic Remington as a contract conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1997 and 1998.

Jill has lectured and led workshops for conservators in the United States and Europe on the use of new materials for varnishing and retouching since 1993.

Robert Proctor has served individuals, institutions, museums, libraries, and corporations in private practice since 1994. He studied Art History at Tulane University in New Orleans, graduating with a BA in 1980, and earned an MA and Certificate of Conservation at Buffalo State College in 1992. He traveled to Munich for his graduate internship at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, where he mastered the technique of reweaving tears.

From 1992 to 1993 Robert was a graduate intern and assistant paintings 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, and 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. He has taught workshops on reweaving and has lectured internationally on varnishes since 1994.