Thomas John Shillea  Thomas John Shillea, (b. 1947) is an American artist, specializing in a variety of media including painting and photography. He began drawing at the age of two and throughout his childhood made thousands of photorealistic drawings. He earned a BS in Art Ed. from Kutztown University. He taught high school art until he finally decided to earn an MFA at the Rochester Institute of Technology. During his graduate work at RIT he studied museum practices in the Exhibition Department at the George Eastman House. This experience introduced him to the platinum photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Session photographers. Shillea decided to learn the process of platinum print and has continued to pursue this technique since. While interning at the Eastman House he researched some long-forgotten chemical formulas for platinotypes that were no longer taught in the RIT curricula. At that time he also began using a classic 8x10” view camera and printing exclusively in platinum for his fine art. After earning his MFA in Photography, Shillea continued to pursue his scholarly research. He was granted access to the laboratories of the British company Johnson Matthey, purveyors and refiners of platinum metals, and collaborated with their scientist for a year and a half. It was this company that was instrumental in the development of the original Platinotype process supplying William Willis the platinum metal compounds necessary to make his patented paper in 1873. Shillea’s extensive research lead to the publication of his two books: "The History of the Platinum Print" co-authored with John Hafey, and "The Instruction Manual For The Platinum Printing Process". These books have been cited hundreds of times in reference texts on the history of photography as well as photographic processes and were likely instrumental in the resurgence of the process in the 1980s. During his career, Shillea was invited to work with the United States Information Agency in Washington, D.C. on a project titled “Gallery of Famous Americans” during which he photographed President Ronald Reagan, civil-rights leader Coretta Scott King, Academy Award winning actor Sissy Spacek and American publisher, Malcolm Forbes. He has photographed other celebrities, including golfer Arnold Palmer, US Olympic cycling medalist Davis Phinney and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl. His photographs are included in over a dozen major fine art museums and universities including The George Eastman House, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The National Portrait Gallery, The National Museum of African American History and Culture (The Smithsonian), The Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and The Rochester Institute of Technology, The James A. Michener Museum of Art, Lehigh University Art Galleries and others.