Theresa Fairbanks-Harris, M.S. In Art Conservation from University of Delaware; B.S. Yale University
Name: Theresa Fairbanks Harris YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY Email: Theresa.fairbanks-harris@yale.edu
Cell: 203-996-7546 ___________________________________________________________________________________________
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2011- Present Senior Conservator for Works on Paper, Yale University of Art Gallery and Yale Center for British Art
2006-2011 Chief Conservator, Works on Paper, Yale Center for British Art and Yale University Art Gallery. Instructor, Graduate Interns in Conservation January
1990 - 2006 Chief Conservator, Yale Center for British Art an Chief Paper Conservator, Yale University Art Gallery January
1982 - 1990 Paper Conservator, Yale Center for British Art and Yale University Art Gallery
1983 - 2019 Lecturer, Yale University Art School and History of Art Department on Artists’ Materials and Techniques
January 1982 Paper Conservator, the National Museum of American History
October 1980 - 1981 Paper Conservator, the Smithsonian Conservation Analytical Lab
January 1976 – 1977 Assistant Textile Restorer and Intern in Painting Conservation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
EDUCATION 1980 Certificate in Conservation, Harvard University Art Museums
1980 Master of Science in Art Conservation, Winterthur Museum, University of Delaware Art Conservation Program. Major: Paper Conservation; Minor: Photography Conservation.
1977 Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Studio Art, Yale University Summa cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa with Distinction in Art History
WORKSHOPS AND COURSES
June 2013 Romanesque and Renaissance book bindings, Rare Book School, Yale
August 2011 Islamic Book and Manuscript Materials and Conservation, LA County Museum
2009 Technical Examination of Paper, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown FAIC October 2009 Early European boxes with hand colored woodcuts study day, Metropolitan Museum of Art
June 2006 Digital Photography, Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation (FAIC)
October 2005 Machine-Made Paper course, sponsored by American Institute for Conservation (AIC), Williamstown Conservation Center, Williamstown, MA
April 2005 Risk Management Seminar, Yale Peabody Museum.
September 1999, Sept 2004 Chemical treatment of photographic materials workshops, Kent, CT
2005 Risk Management, Yale University
May 2002 History and use of pigments and inks workshop, National Training Conservation Center, Harpers Ferry, Shepherdstown, WV
2002 Oversized matting and framing with Hugh Phibbs, AIC; Washington, D.C. AIC
2000 Participant in Pollaiuolo print Colloquy, CASVA, National Gallery, Washington, and D.C.
February 1993 Parchment Treatment with Abagail Quandt, Smithsonian Institute November 1990 Paper suction table course, Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.
May 1989 Use of Enzymes with Helen Burgess at New Bedford Whaling Museum
May 1983 Japanese paper course, International Institute for Conservation; Tokyo, Nara, Kyoto, Japan
No date Museum Lighting with Stephen Heffren, American Institute for Conservation
No date Anoxic enclosures for insect eradication class, Yale University
PUBLICATIONS AND EXHIBITIONS (selected)
Author, “Thoughts on the Condition and Care of a Leonard da Vinci Self-Portrait”, published in: desegni di Leonardo: Diagnostica, Conservazione, Tutela. Published from a talk given at an international conference dedicated to the examination of Leonardo’s self- portrait in red chalk in Rome at Seminario Internazionale Roma in 2012, Instituto Centrale per il Restauro e la converzione del Patrimonio Archivistico e Librarioin in 2014 Ministero dei Beni e delle Attivita Culturali e del Turismo Instituto Centrale. 2014.
Member, “the Drawing Terminology Project” with Philadelphia Art Museum 2012-14.
Co-contributor; “Radiocarbon Measurements on Silver Gelatin Prints Attributed to the American Photographer Lewis Hine (1874-1940)”, Gregory Hodgins, Dana Drake Rosenstein, and Theresa Fairbanks-Harris; presented to Radiocarbon Conference, Paris
July 9-12, 2012 and a poster at meeting May 27 - June 2, 2012, Leuven, Belgium.
Author, “Paul Revere’s Phillip, King of Mount Hope, from Thomas Church the Entertaining History of King Philip’s War; Conservator’s Analysis”, December 2013, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin.
Author, “Mr. Whatman’s Turkey Mill”; Journal of Hand Papermaking, fall 2007
Co-curator of exhibition Mr. Whatman’s Turkey Mill and the Art of Paper and Watercolor
Author and co-author, Papermaking and the Art of Watercolor in Eighteenth Century Britain: Paul Sandby and the Whatman Paper Mill. 2006. “Papermaking and the Whatmans”, “Paul Sandby’s Creation of the Watercolor, A View of Vinters at Boxley, Kent, with Mr. Whatman’s Turkey Paper Mills”, “A Synoptic View of Papers Marked Whatman” in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century England”. 2006
Author, “Gold Discovered: John Singleton Copley’s Portrait Miniatures on Copper,” in Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, fall 1999, pp. 19-31.
Author, “The Mystery and Mystique of Printing on Parchment,” in Changing Impressions: Marcantonio Raimondi & Sixteenth-Century Print Connoisseurship, Yale University Art Gallery, 1999, pp. 44-59. Created exhibition cases displaying parchment and printmaking didactic materials for Changing Impressions… exhibition at YUAG.
RESEARCH INTERESTS Historic artists’ materials and techniques; analytical identification of artists’ materials. Particular specialization and in-depth interests in works on paper: drawings, pastels, photographs and cased 19th century photographs, portrait and Asian miniatures, parchment, master prints and drawings.
Particular focus has included: Paul Revere prints, English and American portrait miniatures, John Singleton Copley miniatures, George Stubbs, James Whatman and his papers, JMW Turner, treatment of discolored lead pigments in watercolor, hand papermaking and the history of papermaking.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Print Council of America (former board member and steering committee 2010 for annual meeting.)
Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation.
Professional Associate of the American Institute of Conservation (AIC). Member of AIC specialty group for books and paper and photographs.
The International Book and Paper Conservation Group
Member, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Co-founder of the New York Conservation Association
Member of former Yale University Conservation Advisory Committee
Member of the New England Conservation Association
Former Director of the Friends of the Dard Hunter Paper Museum.
LECTURES, PRESENTATIONS, AND TEACHING EXPERIENCE (selected)
2016 Taught Technical Art History session at YUAG for the Ross exhibition
2015 Gallery talk on Whistler’s materials and techniques for YUAG Whistler Exibition.
2012 - 2016 Lectures for Yale Art School in Freshman Papermaking Class on Materials in Papermaking
1983 - 2015 Taught courses regularly for History of Art Department on Artists’ Materials and Techniques and Conservation
2014 Taught Conservation and Technical Examination of Art for Trinity College History of Art Class
2013 - 2014 Lectured on Paul Revere’s prints of the Bloody Massacre and Revere’s print of King Philip and its’ Technical examination and conservation (Yale Materials Culture Lunch and University of Pennsylvania English Departments)
2014 Lectured on Conservation and Careers in Conservation at Salve Regina University
2013 - 2014 Lecture, The History of Parchment and Paper for Rare Book School: Medieval Manuscripts, Yale Beinecke Library
2013 Scripted and Presented for video recording, “‘Complexities of a Conservation Treatment of Colonial American Pastel”, New Haven Museum
2013 Lectured on Careers in the Arts for the Yale Art History Club
2012 - 2013 Taught Kress Foundation summer Technical Art History on: paper making, print identification drawing and watercolor materials, American and watercolors and Trumbull drawings.
2012 Lectured, The History of Paper and its Technical Examination. Lewis Walpole Library.
2012 Presented Paper: “The Treatment of Leonardo’s self-portrait in Red Chalk”, Instituto Centrale per il Restauro e la converzione del Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario in Rome, Italy at International Leonardo Symposium.
2011 Organizer of x-ray fluorescence workshop at Yale University
2011 Speaker and co-organizer of Pastel study day at Yale Center for British Art
2011 Lectured on Winslow Homer prints at New Britain Museum of American Art
2011 Lecture, Conservation for the Collector and Conservation as a Career Ayers Mansion, Boston
2010 Presenter, Conservation of Photographs (with Joshua Chuang and Ash Anderson) Art and Learning
2010 Co-taught Master Class on Portraiture in Miniatures to Photography with Joshua Chuang and Kelley Orgeman
2009 Co-lectured for the Yale University Art Gallery’s Art and Learning program entitled The Look of the Book: Digital Facsimiles for Exhibition, Publication and the Web with Lisa Hodermarsky and Susan Fisher, Assistant Curators and John
French, Director of Digital Photography Yale University Art Gallery
2009 Presenter, Art in Context Focus on: The History and Conservation of Andy Warhol’s Mao, with Co- speaker Jennifer Farrell. Yale University Art Gallery
2008 Organizer, Iron Gall Workshop at Yale University.
2008 Lectured on Conservation for Smith College Summer Institute in Art Museum Studies.
2005 Lectured on Conservation and Technical Examination for Wesleyan University’s History of Prints Course.
2004 Lecture, “Whatman’s Mill: Papermaking and the Art of Watercolor in Eighteenth-Century Britain”. British Association of Paper Historians, London, UK
2003 Co-author of Poster Session, American Institute for Conservation Annual Meeting on Conservation and Rehousing Using Original Frames, of Edwin Austin Abbey Pastels at Yale University Art Gallery with Terry Marsh and Mary Regan-Yttree.
2003 Creation of video recording on “The Techniques and Materials of Watercolors”; produced for Yale University Art Gallery, American Watercolor Exhibition
2003 Lecture, “Materials and Techniques of American Watercolor”, Yale University Art Gallery.
2003 Lecture, “Technical analysis and conservation of John Singleton Copley Miniatures”, Trinity College chemistry class
2001 Lectures, “American Watercolors” with Helen Cooper and Fakes, Forgeries and Facsimiles with Suzanne Boorsch. Art and Learning, YUAG.
2000 Lecture, “John Singleton Copley Portrait Miniatures: Analysis and Conservation”, Decorative Arts Trust of Cleveland, Ohio
2000 Lecture, “American Miniatures”, Art and Learning. Yale University Art Gallery
2000 Co-lecture, “Marcel Duchamp's Boite en Valise” with Lisa Hodermarsky, Art and Learning series, Yale University Art Gallery
1994 Lectures, “John Singleton Copley portrait miniatures: Gold Discovered”. Yale Materials Culture Group, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Seminarians, Boston, Massachusetts
1983 Lecture for the South Salem New York Textile Conservation workshop on an innovative technique invented for mending shattered silk embroideries
Various dates Frequently lecture on Conservation, Artists’ Materials and Techniques, Science in Art to classes from: Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Wesleyan University, Mystic Seaport summer interns, Amherst Museum class, New Haven High School Students in Science classes.
SELECTED CONSERVATION PROJECTS
Survey and conservation of Societe Anonyme collection of works on paper and photographs (1984-ongoing).
Conservation and technical examination of Paul Revere’s Bloody Massacre and Paul Revere’s print of King Philip and other colonial printmakers.
Research into Bloody Massacre impressions with American Antiquarian Society.
Survey and conservation of prints by Rembrandt, Durer, Homer, American watercolors.
Examination, treatment and rehousing of Edwin Austin Abbey pastels, and drawings (1983- ongoing).
Technical examination and conservation of James McNeil Whistler prints, YUAG and BAC.
Survey, technical examination and conservation of miniatures. This includes American, European, English and Indian and Persian miniatures.