Polly Saltmarsh
Polly is an experienced conservator working for a variety of museums and institutions including the National Portrait Gallery, London, National Trust as well as private collections. Polly studied for her MA (Hons) in Art History at Glasgow University following which she completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Easel Painting Conservation at the Courtauld Institute in Art, London, graduating in 2007. She has worked in the Netherlands at the Kröller-Müller Museum and the Government department for Cultural Heritage. In 2008 she joined the research project, Making Art in Tudor Britain at the National Portrait Gallery. The groundbreaking research investigated materials and methods used to create some of Britain’s most iconic early portraits, an area Polly has published on and continues to be actively interested in.
Polly has worked as a freelance conservator for over a decade and set up the current studio in 2016. She has achieved professional accredited status through the Institute of Conservation. Polly is also an active member of the British Association of Paintings Conservators and Restorers, having served as a council member. In 2015 Polly was invited as a visiting scholar to the Yale Center for British Art to undertake research and technical investigation into the collection of early miniature portraits in the collection.
Ulla Grimmett
Ulla is a skilled practical conservator with professional experience at numerous private and public museums and institutions, both here in the UK and in Finland.
After graduating with her paintings conservation degree at Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Finland in 2012, she undertook a two year postgraduate internship at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge, finishing in 2014. While at the HKI she conserved and researched several old masters, including undertaking challenging remedial treatment and research of water-damaged paintings. For the past seven years Ulla has been working as a freelance conservator. She has a particular interest in structural treatment of paintings. She has acquired broad experience of treating paintings with complex structural issues, both on panel and canvas, and she enjoys a new challenge. Ulla is also experienced in the conservation of medieval wooden polychrome sculptures and gilded picture frames. Ulla is a member of the Institute of Conservation and The British Association of Paintings Conservators Restorers.
Links
Treatment of the Portrait of Katherine Parr, National Portrait Gallery, London
Link
Treatment of the Portrait of Gainsborough Dupont, Collection of Waddesdon Manor, for exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London
Publications & Articles
Portrait of an Unknown Lady: Technical Analysis of an Early Tudor Miniature, British Art Studies, Issue 17, September 2020. http://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-17/portrait-of-an-unknown-lady
Treatment and attribution of the portrait of Sir Richard Jebb, in the collection of the British Academy
Calling authenticity into question: investigating the production of versions and copies in Tudor portraiture, co-authored with Sophie Plender and published in conference postprints Authenticity and Replication: The ‘Real Thing’ in art and conservation, Rebecca Gordon, Erma Hermens, Frances Lennard (eds.), Archetype, :London, 2014.
Copies and versions: Discussing Holbein's legacy in England: Technical examination of copies of Holbein portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, co-authored with Sophie Plender and printed in conference postprints European Paintings 15th – 18th centuries: Copying, Replicating and Emulating; Erma Hermens (ed.)London, Archetype, 2014 and presented at the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, May 2012
Sensitivity of oil paint surfaces to aqueous and other solvents, Hannah Tempest, Aviva Burnstock, Polly Saltmarsh, & Klaas Jan van den Berg. Paper presented at the New Insights into the Cleaning of Paintings, May 2010, Valencia
Making Paint without a recipe: modern paint reconstructions, Polly Saltmarsh, Klaas Jan van den Berg & Aviva Burnstock. Poster presented at the ASTR conference, 2008, Glasgow
An investigation into grey layers found on a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, talk at the Amsterdam Picture meeting discussing treatment and technical investigation of a work at the Kröller-Müller Museum, December 2007