Jean Sutherland Boggs was a Canadian art historian and curator. As an academic, her research focused on Edgar Degas, who formed the core of numerous books, articles, and exhibitions authored by Boggs. She served as curator of the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1962 to 1964 before becoming the director of the National Gallery of Canada, a position she held from 1966 to1976. She was the first female National Gallery of Canada director and the first with a doctorate in art history. During her ten years in this role, she guided a huge expansion of the collection, acquiring approximately 8000 works of art for the gallery. At the end of her directorship, Boggs became Professor of Art History at Harvard, and later served as the director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1982, Jean Boggs was appointed CEO of the Canada Museums Construction Corporation by Pierre Trudeau. She was charged with overseeing the construction of two museums, the National Gallery and the Museum of Man (today the Canadian Museum of History), within five years. She selected Dunning Trust alumni Moshe Safdie to design the National Gallery. She was awarded the Companion of the Order of Canada in 1992, and was appointed Kress Professor at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. in 1994. In 1999, Boggs received the Mitchell Prize for lifetime achievement in art history. Over her career, she received honorary degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, Mount Holyoke College, York University, and Concordia University. She died in 2014.
Boggs’ lecture was a part of the series “Canadian Women Look at the 80s” and took place on March 25, 1983. In her talk, Boggs discussed her role in the construction of the National Gallery and the Canadian Museum of History.
